FINISH Mondial and SATO, part of Lixil, join hands to accelerate the achievement of SDG6 across Africa and South Asia
We are delighted to announce that we are joining forces with the award-winning social business SATO, part of LIXIL, one of the largest toilet manufacturers globally. The new partnership aims to leverage finance to bridge the affordability gap for consumers and businesses and scale access to safely managed sanitation systems in Africa and Asia, thereby accelerating the SDG6 goal of sanitation for all by 2030.
Together, we will strive to further develop the local sanitations markets in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The mutual beneficial activities will include research and development of innovative, and customer-centric designs for toilets. We will also continue to develop local sanitation supply chains, notably by offering joint training programmes for masons and local sanitation entrepreneurs and by collaborating on sanitation hackathons to promote innovation at local and global level. The new partnership also aims to bridge the affordability gap, focusing on the provision of sanitation loans to households and local sanitation entrepreneurs in underserved communities, through partnerships with financial institutions.
“The potential is big and if we do it right, we can make it a real driver for change,” remarked Valentin Post, CEO of FINISH Mondial, on the scale of the new partnership, “There is very strong alignment with both SATO and FINISH’s market-based approach to support innovation in climate resilient, gender and socially inclusive sanitation systems.”
“Affordability is a substantial barrier to both households and entrepreneurs in improving sanitation and growing a sanitation business. Building on smaller, local finance partnerships in SATO, FINISH is our first collaboration aimed at unlocking financial access at a global scale,” underscored Erin McCusker, Leader of SATO.
SATO’s experience in market-based sanitation, product development and customer-centric design will enable FINISH Mondial to offer a wider choice of products to consumers and business and to support local innovation in climate-resilient, gender- and socially inclusive sanitation systems. We will strive to use the key learnings garnered from this partnership to provide insights to the broader industry.
SATO was founded in 2013 with the purpose of empowering people everywhere to live a better life and enjoy a brighter future through innovative sanitation and hygiene solutions. With LIXIL, SATO aims to improve the lives of 100 million people by 2025. Visit www.sato.lixil.com to learn more.
Keen to learn more?
Check out the video interview of Erin McCusker, Senior Vice President of SATO and Valentin Post, CEO of FINISH Mondial.
Read Erin’s blog post.
Find the press release here.