June 24, 2009
WaterAid America aims to improve water supply and sanitation services to the poor living in small towns in Africa and Asia

Planning project seeks to identify strategic opportunities for innovative solutions to this largely neglected, poorly understood, and growing development challenge

New York, NY —WaterAid America has received a $715,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that aims to enhance the lives of millions of poor people in small towns in developing countries by identifying promising approaches for improving how water and sanitation services are designed, implemented, and managed.

WaterAid America recognizes the need to forestall what some have called a looming human catastrophe in small towns in Asia and Africa where hundreds of millions of people are living without adequate water and sanitation services. Failure to address this impending crisis will have serious consequences for public health, the environment, and ultimately, people’s lives.

Clean water and adequate sanitation have a profound impact on the health, economic, and social conditions of people in the developing world.
Louis Boorstin, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Approximately one-third of the people living in Africa and Asia reside in “small towns,” and in some countries up to 50 percent of the population live in these rapidly growing settlements. Both the population and number of these small towns are projected to double within 15 years, and then double again within 30 years. And while the number and size of small towns is rapidly growing, the number of people with access to basic water and sanitation services is not keeping pace.

Characterized by rapid, unplanned growth, high concentrations of low-income populations as well as run-down and often non-existent basic infrastructure, these urban areas pose a major development challenge and threaten to derail efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation.

“The Gates Foundation is widely recognized for targeting some of the most significant and vexing challenges facing the development community. We are grateful to them for bringing their commitment and expertise to this important issue,” commented Patricia Dandonoli, President & CEO of WaterAid America, “and for their generous support of WaterAid.”

WaterAid’s planning project aims to collect and synthesize existing knowledge and experience of social service and infrastructure delivery in small towns. This will be done through an extensive global literature review, in-depth stakeholder consultations across six countries in Africa and South Asia and by gathering and distilling insights from a wide variety of relevant disciplines.

WaterAid expects to test the resulting action research hypotheses generated from the planning project through its on-going work with local partners, leading towards model approaches and solutions for small towns that the broader sanitation and water sector will be encouraged to adopt and develop further.

“Clean water and adequate sanitation have a profound impact on the health, economic, and social conditions of people in the developing world.” said Louis Boorstin, head of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “This project will help to identify sustainable and scalable solutions for poor people living in small towns, a large but often neglected group.”