Cross-cutting Impact: Health & Climate Change
FINISH Mondial recently hosted a Virtual Luncheon Session for The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) – sharing experiences on the crucial linkages between sanitation, health, and climate. During the session, Karin Roelofs, Head of the Water Team of the Inclusive Green Growth Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands (DGIS-IGG), introduced the topic of safely managed sanitation and emphasized its importance in relation to health and water at t global level. The FINISH Mondial programme CEO, Mr. Valentin Post, and our programme’s COO, Nouria Ouibrahim, presented the current achievements, including the FM results for 2021 and targets met through ongoing initiatives and collaborations with our various partnerships; as well as the most significant changes from the previous year.
Mr. Mturi James, Chair of the FINISH Mondial faecal sludge management-circular economy (FSM-CE) Working Group from partner, Amref Health Africa, then discussed the climate change – sanitation nexus, emphasising the need for improved WASH services to make communities and households more climate-resilient. Mr. Godefroid Nimbona, the Lead Health FM Working Group from Amref Health Africa, took over the discussion on health. He highlighted the need for more coverage over health impacts like the effects of safe sanitation on gender-transformative health and the first steps toward health care financing.
Following the presentations, we held a panel discussion where attendees could ask questions and gain additional insight into key challenges. During the discussion, some very interesting points were raised on including accessing finance for water interventions, risks for private investments in the programme, high costs of client acquisition, and increasing engagements in the sanitation loan business, among others.
Our CEO concluded the session by highlighting some solutions to the key challenges raised during the discussion. He recognised the importance of ACTIAM’s fund mobilization initiative and the importance of investing in MFIs for lending in WASH sector. We all agreed that innovative water and sanitation initiatives are key in relation to climate resilience and that we must take action to solve these issues in 2022.
We are very pleased to have hosted such a successful session and would like to thank our team of supporters, experts, and innovators who came together and shared their experiences and ambitions, as well as collaborated on these challenges!