Cash rewards spur poor communities to pay for sanitation projects

The East Meets West Foundation tries cash awards to encourage families and communities in Vietnam and Cambodia to build latrines and hand-washing devices.

By Nicole Wallace, The Chronicle of Philanthropy / September 12, 2012

An international aid charity is taking an unorthodox approach to helping people in Cambodia and Vietnam improve sanitation and hygiene: It asks beneficiaries to help pay for the construction of latrines and hand-washing stations, but then gives them cash rewards when they get results. The effort will now spread, thanks to a $10.9-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The East Meets West Foundation, in Oakland, Calif., works with local groups to provide hygiene education, train masons to build high-quality latrines, and broker low-cost loans that families can use to install latrines and hand-washing devices. Families receive a $10 rebate to help offset construction costs after an independent group has verified that the latrine is in place.

Communities also get incentives: They receive cash awards to be put toward public-works projects, such as roads and sanitation facilities in schools, when the percentage of households that have latrines and hand-washing devices hits 30 percent, and the communities receive more money when those rates reach 95 percent.

Gates Foundation Provides Millions for Sanitation in Cambodia, Vietnam

Bill Gates, accompanied by his wife Melinda speak to students at an appearance at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina.

04 September 2012
Men Kimeng, VOA Khmer

WASHINGTON DC - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided nearly $11 million to help more than 1 million people establish better sanitation through the construction of latrines.

The funding, provided to the East Meets West Foundation, will help people in Cambodia and Vietnam, where around 17,000 people die each year from poor sanitation, said John Anner, director of East Meets West.

That means the loss of some $1.2 billion a year to medical treatment and absence from work, he said.

“So we see sanitation as not simply being a health issue, but also something that helps families trapped in the cycle of poverty and makes it hard to climb out of poverty,” Anner told VOA in an interview.

Gates Foundation awards $11M to East Meets West

Thursday, August 16, 2012
By Lindsay Riddell, Reporter
San Francisco Business Times

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $10.9 million grant to Oakland-based East Meets West Foundation to improve sanitation and hygiene in rural Cambodia and Vietnam.

East Meets West, an international development agency, will use the money to fund its program, which includes sanitation and hygiene education, installing toilets and hand washing devices in homes, and cash payments for use of those facilities within a community.

The Foundation said 50 percent of people living in rural Vietnam and 80 percent in rural Cambodia don’t have access to sanitation facilities. Disease resulting from the unsanitary disposal of human waste kills about 17,000 people a year — most of those younger than five years old — in those two countries every year.

Gates grant funds production of genetically engineered malaria drug

A Cambodian soldier offers blood for a malaria test near the Cambodian and Thai border, where efforts are underway to eliminate a drug-resistant strain of falciparum malaria (TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

July 8, 2010
Posted by Kristi Heim
Seattle Times (Washington State, USA)

The Institute for OneWorld Health, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, said it has received $10.7 million from the Gates Foundation to begin commercial production of a key ingredient for malaria treatment.

In a partnership with drug company Sanofi-Aventis, the institute will use the Gates grant to prepare for large-scale production and commercialization of semi synthetic artemisinin by 2012.

Semi synthetic artemisinin is produced by a combination of genetic engineering and synthetic chemistry.

Artemisinin, the standard treatment recommended for malaria, is derived from artemisia, an herb found in Chinese medicine from the leaves of the wormwood tree.

While the parasite that causes the mosquito-borne disease has developed resistance to traditional drugs such as chloroquine, artemisinin in combination with other drugs is considered to be the most effective medication and credited with raising recovery rates globally.

The problem is its cost. Labor intensive extraction drives the price up and out of reach of most people in malaria prone areas such as sub-Saharan Africa.

This scientific paper describes the process, and this article offers a plain English translation of the project to use genetic engineering techniques to create microbes that can mass-produce artemisinin. (The University of Washington is also studying artemisinin's potential in cancer prevention.)

But even a more stable supply may not fully solve the problem of drug resistance when it comes to malaria. U.S. health officials say resistance to artemisinin is spreading.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned last year that parasites resistant to artemisinin had emerged along the border between Cambodia and Thailand.

The Gates Foundation gave the Institute for OneWorld Health a five-year $42.5 million grant in 2004 to establish and validate a manufacturing process to make artemisinin-type drugs more affordable.

Gates Foundation pours $115 million into new malaria drugs

October 17, 2009
By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times

Health experts around the globe were chilled earlier this year by the discovery that malaria in Cambodia has evolved resistance to the most promising drug in medicine's arsenal.

With the effectiveness of artemisinin under threat, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is stepping up its investment in new malaria drugs with a $115 million grant to the Geneva-based Medicines for Malaria Venture. The grant brings the foundation's total funding for the group to $317 million.

Malaria has long been a top priority for the Gateses, who in 2007 took the controversial step of calling for eradication of the disease. Many experts question whether that will ever be possible, but foundation CEO Jeff Raikes recently said the world's biggest philanthropy is refocusing its malaria programs with the goal of eradication in mind.

The "E-word," which some malaria scientists utter with trepidation based on past failures, is repeated three times in MMV's four-paragraph press release on the new grant.

In February, MMV and drugmaker Novartis introduced a sweet-tasting version of the combination malaria drug Coartem for African children. The group is funding work on more than 50 drug candidates, ten of which are in clinical development.

Interview : Mechai Viravaidya [founder of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA)]

Mechai Viravaidya, founder and chairman of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA)

March 16, 2009
By Achara Deboonme and Chularat Saengpassa
The Nation

Mechai takes sustainable rural development model to cambodia

We will implement the process in 20 villages, starting late this year. Some of them will be along the ThaiCambodian border and others in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Our focus will be on two areas: first, to provide microcredit and knowledge to villagers and broaden their views so they can stand on their own feet; second, nongovernment organisations will be strengthened through new business models.

Why Cambodia?

We have been approached by many countries such as Bhutan, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and East Timor, but we don't have enough funding. I also discussed with Asean SecretaryGeneral Surin Pitsuwan the possibility of creating the Asean Endeavour to End Poverty, which could be a new initiative to eliminate poverty in Asean nations.

In Cambodia, the project will be partly assisted by funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation recently awarded the PDA US$7.3 million [Bt262 million], and half of that will go to Cambodia with help from other private companies. [During the interview, it was revealed that a brokerage firm in Sweden had agreed to pay $1 million to support four villages in Cambodia and eight in Thailand.]

What's the difference between this help and other social contributions?

Individuals and corporations and the government mostly throw [the poor] money without teaching them or evaluating the results. Then, how do they improve their abilities? They will remain poor. Under our programme, we're matching a corporate donor with a village. The village is given funding in return for the planting of trees, which is equivalent to Bt40 per tree. The funding will go to the village, managed by a village bank which is represented by people of different sexes and ages for equality. Then, the corporate donor will assist in training and trips to broaden villagers' perspectives.

The poor usually face problems in obtaining loans, as they have only labour. At the village banks, they can use it as collateral or for debt repayments and this will help them become independent. If you want to help the poor, it's necessary to give them access to credit, as it is a human right.

What about NGO involvement?

It's an old idea that NGOs must not be involved in business. But how can they survive and continue with their projects if funding dries up? Under our programme, we will help NGOs start up their businesses. Some returns will be reinvested while the rest will be used to finance their projects. It's like what the PDA is doing with the returns from its Condoms and Cabbages restaurants. The world has changed. NGOs can no longer live like beggars, particularly when the economic crisis hurts many companies.

Who are your target donors in Cambodia?

Companies in the country, be they Thai, Cambodian or French. We believe there are many, as we witnessed in Thailand. Here, starting with Bangkok Glass, we have secured assistance from many companies such as Swedish Motors and Novartis, which is implementing a similar project in every country in which it operates. We have also struck an agreement with the Stock Exchange of Thailand, to encourage listed companies to join the programme. A similar agreement has also been struck with the Thai Chamber of Commerce, which has many members. How will the rural development proceed?

We target implementing help in all villages in a tambon. Then, the tambon will set up a foundation. While our experts teach them how to tap overseas funds, the tambon will also have its own company with villagers as shareholders and endowment funds from local administrative bodies. The foundation will take care of noneconomic issues, like health, to ensure that poverty does not revisit the better off. In the long run, these tambon can combine their forces through an assembly, to help develop the economy, society and democracy. Through this mechanism, they can voice what they want.

What drove you to this model?

There's no government in the world that can deliver everything to its citizens. Sometimes, people expect too much from their governments. Governments are mostly channelling money to infrastructure, which is good for the entire country but may not benefit the poor. It's also not the government's duty to teach business skills to citizens and, importantly, it has no knowledge about business. Social contribution like giving out money won't help, as it does not create new knowledge or enhance the poor's energy and ability. Worse, it teaches them to ask for free things.

People don't really [understand] when they talk about eradicating poverty. Only business methods can do the magic. And to me, the poor are businessmen who are not good at making profits.