Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Nov - Dec Vol. 9 No.6 | Page 13

NEWS in brief

Global Highlights

The Nano Membrane Toilet receives further funding
The Nano Membrane Toilet has received further funding
from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue
the development of the toilet. This next phase will take
Cranfield University in the UK up to January 2016 when it
will have a prototype ready for field testing. The university
reports to be excited to start work again after a 6 month
break.

New prime minister Stefan Löfven said he was committed to
“leading the fight against climate change” in his first speech.

The university will also continue to work on some of
the components from phase one, particularly the initial
collection chamber, the membrane, the flush and the screw,
the latter in collaboration with University of Kwazulu
- Natal. The biggest change to them is that rather than
coating the dried solids, where they are now looking to
combust them in the toilet using a gasifier - will be working
with RTI International who are already testing their gasifier
in India. This changes the energy balance of the toilet, for
example they can now consider recovering the water using
a heat exchanger instead of the beads, and won’t have to
use the bicycle power generator or hand crank to power the
membrane processes.

“As a proportion of their GDP that makes it the most
ambitious pledge to date. If Germany pledged an equivalent
amount of their GDP, their €1bn pledge would have been
more than 3.5bn, and the US would have to pledge around
US$ 15bn,” said Tim Gore, a climate finance expert at
Oxfam International.

These new components will require changes to the overall
toilet design, and also an intelligent control system which
they will work on with Three Bird Swan. The university
will also continue to collect the perceptions of our target
users, through interviews with the customers of Clean Team
in Ghana.

Pic: – Abhimanyu/Flickr

diverted from existing development projects.
The $500 million will be delivered over a four-year period.
“We are not eroding our important international aid work,”
Åsa Romson, Sweden’s environment minister and vice prime
minister told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
Sweden’s centre-left minority government will announce the
budget bill on 23 October.

“That’s the kind of real leadership we need to fill the fund
and to send the signal that governments are serious about
tackling climate change. The pledge does still need to be
approved by the Swedish parliament, so we hope they follow
the leadership the new government is showing.”
The money will go into the UN-backed Green Climate
Fund, which will channel climate finance towards poor
countries. Financial pledges from developed countries are
expected to amount to $100 billion a year from 2020.
So far, countries have been slow to come forward, with
around $2.3 billion in the pot so far, mainly provided by
France and Germany. Sweden had previously given another
$40 million.
Until recently, the structure and safeguards of the GCF had
been in limbo. This uncertainty had discouraged countries
like the US and UK from making contributions to the Fund.
A board meeting which concluded on Sunday in Barbados
removed the final obstacles to potential pledges, observers
said. States are now expected to promise new money at a
pledging session this November.

UN General Assembly Adopts Resolution on SDGs
report
On 10 September, the UN
General Assembly adopted
a resolution that paves the
way for the incorporation
of sustainable development
goals into the post-2015
development agenda.
At the opening of the 69th session of the General Assembly,
the body’s new President, Sam Kahamba Kutesa, declared
the theme of this year “Delivering on and implementing a
Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda”, reports
the United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs. The framework shall strive to eradicate poverty and
hunger and promote sustained and inclusive economic
growth, argued the president.
By the end of 2014