Sanitation Financing Partnership Trust Fund under the Water Financing Partnership Facility

What is the fund?

On 25 July 2013, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed a channel financing agreement with ADB to contribute $15 million through a Sanitation Financing Partnership Trust Fund under the Water Financing Partnership Facility. The fund aims to support identification, testing, and pilot implementation of innovative sanitation solutions – new policies, business models, and technologies – to increase support for non-networked (non-sewered) sanitation and septage management in ADB’s developing member countries.

ADB will administer the fund under its Water Financing Partnership Facility umbrella.

What are the priorities and what kind of activities will be financed from the fund?

The different types of projects that can be supported by the fund include the following:

• Piloting innovative sanitation technologies
  • Technology that retains solids in the septic tanks so that only the water (supernatant) is pumped out (Viet Nam)
  • Improving design of simple septic tanks for better efficiency, specifically to treat more kilograms of biochemical oxygen demand per unit (the Philippines or Viet Nam)
  • Modifications to septage trucks for better on-site dewatering (Indonesia and the Philippines)
  • Lower-cost off-site dewatering technologies (Bangladesh)
  • Sludge composting and/or waste-to-energy initiatives (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines)
• Additional investments
  • New proposed sanitation investment in Bangladesh
  • New septage and wastewater management projects for secondary and tertiary cities in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. India may be added to this pipeline.
• Septage management and sludge treatment policies
  • Pilot waste-to-energy technology for sludge management, while providing assistance for policy support in the Philippines
  • Establishment of policy support for the use of sludge for composting
  • Enable policies for better septage treatment, with emphasis on methods for guaranteeing septic tank pump-out
• New project delivery mechanisms
  • Introduction of output-based aid
  • Review of life cycle cost for sanitation systems, including consideration of centralized versus decentralized solutions; inclusion of capital and operating expenditures in technology evaluations.

Who is eligible to receive the fund proceeds?

The recipients of the fund proceeds will be the governments of ADB’s developing member countries. All developing member countries will be eligible for support from the fund for projects and activities prioritized under ADB’s Water Financing Program. First priority will be given to Bangladesh and India. Second priority countries are Indonesia, Philippines, and Viet Nam. Other countries may be considered based on need, in consultation with the Foundation.

Who supports the fund?

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports the fund.