The project was developed by Prof. Damir Brdjanovic, Professor of
Sanitary Engineering, UNESCO-IHE. Dr. Thammarat Koottatep of AIT’s
School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) is spearheading
the project for AIT.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced this grant at the
AfricaSan 2011 conference in Kigali, Rwanda on 19 July 2011. This is
one of the largest research and postgraduate education projects
targeting sanitation for the urban poor. Earlier, a delegation of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation headed by Dr. Frank
Rijsberman, Director, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene; and Mr.
Doulaye Kone, Senior Program Officer had visited AIT in February
2011.
Apart from AIT, the other partner institutes of UNESCO-IHE are
Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia; International Institute of
Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE), Burkina Faso; Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana; Makerere
University Institute of Environmental and Natural Resources (MUIENR),
Uganda; University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa; Federal University
of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil and Universidad del Valle,
Colombia.
Reacting to the grant announcement, Dr. Thammarat described it as an
affirmation of AIT’s development orientation and commitment towards
sustainable solutions. Among the 2.6 billion people who don’t have
access to safe sanitation, almost 200 million are from Southeast Asian
countries. The region needs innovative sanitation facilities that
hygienically separate human wastes with proper treatment and recycle
technologies, Dr. Thammarat added.
Since 1964, the Environmental Engineering and Management (EEM) Field
of Study has been working in research and development of the innovative
sanitation technology ranging from simple septic tanks, human-made
wetlands or low-cost membranes. “With the generous grant from BMGF, AIT
will reinvent a new generation of the sanitation technologies with
affordable cost to the poor without compromising the health and
environmental risks,” he added.
The project will cover over 500 trained professionals from developing
countries, 60 Master’s students, 20 Doctoral students and five
post-doctoral fellows. Research themes include smart sanitation
provision for slums and informal settlements, emergency sanitation
following natural and anthropological disasters, resource recovery
oriented decentralized sanitation, low‐cost wastewater collection and
treatment and faecal sludge management.
From left to right: Prof. Said
Irandoust, Dr. Thammarat Koottatep and Dr. Frank Rijsberman (file
photo).
