Bottom-up result-based financing and the real costs of sanitation

Our Result-Based Financing session ‘Addressing bottlenecks & unlocking finance for WASH’, at the Stockholm World Water Week (SIWI) in August included a 2-part virtual hackathon. The main topic of the first part was bottom-up result-based financing and the real costs of sanitation, with presentations from our partners Social Finance, USAID, and Water for People amongst others. After their presentations Ugandan Government officials elaborated on the key challenges for result based financing in the Ugandan context. The panel discussion at the end provided valuable insights and after the break participants witnessed the prelaunch of the first ever series of sanitation impact funds. Main players in this initiative like ACTIAM, answered questions from the audience and new ideas toward developing the series were shared. Karin Roelofs, Head of the Water Team of the Inclusive Green Growth Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands provided the keynote.

Participants had the chance to experience lessons learned in innovative financing, future ambitions and joined us for a mini hackathon to address key challenges in novel Result Based Financing (RBF) ventures: As we have begun to link the RBF approach to the conversion of human waste, we are uncovering how to make every kg of upcycled human waste into a payment for sanitation entrepreneurs.

Sanitation market development is more than just hardware, it is about systems change. During our Result Based Financing session our convenors explored how costing insights could be linked to public sector Result Based Financing. Furthermore, we concluded that knowing the costs and having a track record can attract commercial investors into this underfunded sector.

Many thanks to our team of supporters, financial experts and innovators, who came together to create an excellent platform for sharing experiences, ambitions and collaborating on challenges together!