With the launch of its web site – www.sanitationfinance.org -and social media channels, the World Sanitation Financing Facility (WSSF) hopes to attract more technical and financial consortium partners. Formally established in 2009, the WSSF seeks to “increase people’s access to sanitation through collaboration and market-based financing solutions”. The WSFF stresses that it is a facility, not a fund, “which means that it seeks to identify the most effective, scalable, and sustainable solutions to the global sanitation issue and their related financing needs, but is not tied to any single pool of finance”.
The WSSF hopes to begin its core work in 2011 by carrying out four country case studies that will form the basis for a “modular framework for enabling, financing, executing, and scaling sanitation solutions”. It has published details of the work plan for 2011 in “Enabling and Scaling Market-Based Solutions to Sanitation” (September 2010, executive summary only, full copy on request).
The idea for the WSFF was born in 2007 following a conversation between Arthur Wood (at the time, the Global Head of Ashoka Social Financial Services) and Jack Sim (Founder, World Toilet Organisation) about how to bring additional financing into sanitation. A Steering Group was formed in November 2009. Besides Ashoka and the World Toilet Organisation, other current partners include the Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), UNICEF, the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), Keystone, Total Impact Advisers and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). The WSSF team consists of Arthur Wood (Convener and Chairman), Dr. Guy Hutton (Lead Economist) and Jesse Anton (Communications Lead).
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