Stockholm World Water Week

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	Stockholm World Water Week BPD at World Water Week 2011 in Stockholm From 21-27 August 2011, BPD was excited to be at World Water Week. The event was an ideal opportunity to learn, share our own learning and influence sector thinking, which are central to our aims. Our latest research was presented and debated at the events below. Catch up on What You Missed from the BPD, SEI and WASTE Seminar Listen to the Session and View the Presentations The audio recording and presentation slides accompanying the session detailed below can be accessed here. Please note, you will need to register and await an activation email to use this facility. Watch the Video on Financing Sanitation Entrepreneurs Watch the online WASTE video shown at the session, which takes a provocative look at the challenges of pit emptying in Uganda and how to make it ‘bankable’. BPD, SEI and WASTE Seminar, 24 August 2011 - Helping Entrepreneurs Provide Sustainable Sanitation Services Chair: David Schaub-Jones, BPD Water & Sanitation, South Africa Co-Convenors: Stockholm Environment Institute and WASTE Speakers: Dr. Ashley Murray - Waste Enterprises, Ghana; Eduardo Quiroz - SNV; Kate Harawa - Water for People, Malawi; Gert de Bruijne - WASTE Panellists: John Meadley - Entrepreneur and Business Specialist, UK; Frederik Claasen - Finance Advisor, Aidenvironment, Netherlands This joint session was extremely successful and feedback was excellent, both on the content (“exciting” and “stimulating”) and on its dynamic, participatory structure (think ‘speed-dating for sanitation specialists’), which succeeded in forging new links and relationships. The session was structured around two controversial statements, including “Rather than turn sanitation 'people' into businesses, we should get ‘real business people’ interested in sanitation”. Discussions delved into replicable ways through which donors, the public sector, NGOs and financiers can engage with sanitation entrepreneurs in order to scale up urban sanitation coverage. A key issue raised was how we deal with the ‘missing middle’, i.e: How to encourage existing sanitation entrepreneurs to scale up so that commercial finance becomes a real possibility The need to enable the ‘brokering’ and ‘mentoring’ roles required in the early stages. Session Background: Interest in market-based approaches to solving development challenges continues to grow. Yet while smaller, local entrepreneurs are fairly commonplace, replicable ways of engaging with them to scale up sanitation coverage are still being sought. Recent work by BPD, WASTE and SEI shows that the entrepreneurs that offer sanitation services are very diverse. The majority get limited support or oversight from public bodies, NGOs and others. This interactive session explored the different markets and incentives for sanitation entrepreneurs from Bolivia, Ghana and Malawi. Together with entrepreneurs and organisations/ specialists that support them, participants debated two key topics: 1) Finance – Access to bank credit and micro-finance, revenue from reuse and other innovations 2) Business Support - What 'business support' do entrepreneurs require from the WASH sector? Roundtable Discussion - The Environment as a Silent Partner The Silent Partner: The role of the environment in multi-stakeholder partnerships for water and sanitation supply Also at Stockholm World Water Week, BPD's Tracey Keatman presented initial findings from the above multi-country research project supported by IDRC. Alongside fellow researchers and representatives from two of the five case studies involved - Mexico and Bolivia - the group had a lively debate about how basic service delivery incentives could be better married with environmental protection needs within the context of multi-stakeholder partnerships, for example: Do partnership processes need to be refined in light of pressing environmental and climate adaptation needs? What do partners need to do differently to negotiate these competing demands? How is the voice of the environment expressed? More information on the IDRC project. Emerging PPP Trends Poster Session During World Water Week, BPD also presented a poster session, summarising its recent work on Emerging PPP Trends in the water and sanitation sector, based on interviews with 21 experts. About World Water Week Organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), World Water Week brings together experts, practitioners, decision makers and business innovators from around the world to exchange ideas, foster new thinking and develop solutions.	BPD at Stockholm Stockholm Related Resources Sanitation - Just Another Business? (pdf) - The crucial role of sanitation entrepreneurs Engaging Sanitation Entrepreneurs (pdf) - Supporting private entrepreneurs to deliver public goods Dakar Case Study (pdf) Access through Innovation (webpage)- Expanding water service delivery through independent network providers - webpage and publications