MANDALUYONG: The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Sanitation Financing Partnership Trust Fund has received 8 million dollars replenishment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, further boosting the partnership between the two institutions to improve access to safe sanitation in Asia and the Pacific.
The bank said in a statement on Thursday that as of 2022, the trust fund has leveraged over 1.64 billion dollars in ADB investments on citywide inclusive sanitation projects in Asian Development Bank developing member countries.
It said that this replenishment brings the foundation’s financial contribution to the trust fund to 27 million dollars since 2013.
ADB Water and Urban Development Sector Office Senior Director Norio Saito said that the bank highly appreciated the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s continued support to the Sanitation Financing Partnership Trust Fund.
He said that this contribution will help ADB scale up and magnify the impact of its initiatives to improve access to safe sanitation in the region.
Funding to help advance focus on addressing climate resilience
This new funding will help advance the bank’s focus on addressing climate resilience in sanitation infrastructure and services while helping make these services safe, inclusive, affordable, and effective.
The trust fund was established in 2013 to promote investments in fecal sludge management, focusing on regulatory frameworks, establishing markets, and innovative business models that facilitate the delivery of non-piped sanitation and septage management services in DMCs.
The trust fund also aims to accelerate the adoption of the CWIS approach to promote equitable, adequate, and inclusive sanitation service solutions in the region.
Since its establishment, the trust fund has helped improve sanitation of 13.93 million people in the region. Out of the 1.64 billion dollars leveraged investments in CWIS projects, nearly 410 million dollars were channeled towards non-severed sanitation and fecal sludge management projects.
