Co-funded by the Asian Development Bank and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, New Projects Focus on Innovative Sanitation Solutions. In Asia and the Pacific, around 1.7 billion people still lack access to safe toilets or latrines, 780 million people still practice open defecation, and around 80% of wastewater is discharged into the environment without treatment.
Last year, the Asian Development Bank created the Sanitation Financing Partnership Trust Fund to help provide safe sanitation to families in Asia’s cities and rural communities who still lack access to basic sanitation facilities and services. ADB is leveraging the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $15 million contribution to finance more than $28 million in non-sewered sanitation and septage management projects across the region in the next five years.