Bangkok--3 Aug--AIT
Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is among the eight partners of UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, which has been awarded a US$8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BGMF). Spread over five years, the grant is targeted at education and research in postgraduate programs with a focus on solutions for the urban poor in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
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.
Photo caption: From left to right: Prof. Said Irandoust, Dr. Thammarat Koottatep and Dr. Frank Rijsberman.