News & Learning

Thrive Networks/East Meets West Foundation, The World Bank Group and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to convene session at World Water Week 2016 in Stockholm, focusing on smart subsidy for sanitation

World Water Week, organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), has become one of the most important annual gatherings for actors engaged in water and development issues. World Water Week 2016, themed “Water for Sustainable Growth,” will take place between August 27 and September 2 in Stockholm, Sweden. The event will provide a unique forum for over 2,500 experts, practitioners, decision makers and business innovators from around the globe to exchange ideas, foster new thinking and develop solutions.

In partnership with The World Bank Group and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Thrive Networks, known as East Meets West (EMW) in Southeast Asia, will convene a session entitled “Smart Subsidy for Sanitation: Experimental and Applied Evidence of Success,” on September 1 from 09:00-10:30 in room FH 307.

The session will be moderated by Jan-Willem Rosenboom, Senior Program Officer in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Speakers will include:

• Radu Ban, Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Loan Hong Duong, Chief of Programs, Thrive Networks/EMW
• Per Ljung, Special Advisor, Thrive Networks/EMW
• Almud Weitz, Principal Regional Team Leader, East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia, Water and Sanitation Program, The World Bank Group

The presentations will examine the potential for accelerating the adoption of sanitation by vulnerable populations via the deployment of smart subsidies.

Cases will be presented from Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Vietnam, including both randomized control experiments and observational studies associated with implementation research of large field programs. Questions to be addressed will include:

1. What is the proper role and magnitude of financial incentives to families, communities and institutions to increase uptake of latrines?
2. How best can smart subsidies be deployed?
3. What is the relative importance of household- and community-level subsidies, and how do they interact?
4. How to enhance the efficiency of subsidies to magnify spillover effects?

The event will conclude with an extended, 20-30 min, Q&A session.

For further information, please contact info@thrivenetworks.org or call +1 (510) 763-7045.