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The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) is a loose, dynamic network of organisations working along the same lines and with the same vision towards sustainable sanitation. Its formation in early 2007 was motivated by the United Nation's decision to declare 2008 as International Year of Sanitation. The goal was to have a joint label for the planned activities and to be able to align with other potential initiatives.
SuSanA's vision document contains a definition of sustainable sanitation which was developed by the SuSanA partners in 2007.[1] All prospective new SuSanA partner organisations have to agree to it when they join.
SuSanA is not an NGO (non-governmental organization). It has no legal structure and takes no membership fees. It is open to others who want to join and be active in the promotion of sustainable sanitation systems. The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance encourages other organisations to join the network, contribute ideas, and to become active members in the thematic working groups.
SuSanA's goal is to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to the Sustainable Development Goals after 2015 by promoting sanitation systems which take into consideration the five major aspects of sustainability, i.e. (i) health and hygiene, (ii) environmental and natural resources, (iii) technology and operation, (iv) finance and economics and (v) socio-cultural and institutional.
SuSanA's mission was defined by its core group in consultation with members in 2014 as: "SuSanA is an open international alliance with members who are dedicated to understanding viable and sustainable sanitation solutions. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and academics from different levels with the aim of promoting innovation and best practices in policy, programming and implementation".[2]
SuSanA is one of several knowledge management platform in the WASH sector such as LinkedIn Discussion Groups, Blue Planet, International Water Association (IWA) Water Wiki, Akvopedia and others.[3]
Since 2007, SuSanA has held 18 meetings (the last one in September 2014). Each year one meeting takes place in connection with the World Water Week in Stockholm and a further meeting usually takes place in the Global South,where it is connected to another WASH event. SuSanA also organises side events, seminars and working group meetings in conjunction with other major conferences.
SuSanA has twelve thematic working groups covering all the main areas of sustainable sanitation where conceptual and knowledge management work is required:[2]
SuSanA has 240 partner organisations (as of March 2015)[2] of the following types: Local NGO, International NGO, private sector, research and education, Governmental / State-owned organisation, multi-lateral organisations, associations and networks and others. Individuals can join as members and there are currently around 4800 members.[4] All SuSanA partner organisations have to agree to SuSanA's vision document[1] before joining.
In order to get involved, members can register their organisation as a SuSanA partner organisation, attend SuSanA meetings or side events, volunteer their time as lead or co-lead for one of the SuSanA working groups, apply to become part of the core group to facilitate coordination and take certain decisions between SuSanA meetings and spend one hour per week sharing their work via the various SuSanA tools.
SuSanA's work is in principle based on voluntary contributions and has no legal structure, budget nor income. Partners contribute time and resources from their own budgets as it creates synergies with their normal work. The SuSanA secretariat is funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) who has commissioned the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Since the end of 2012 and until end of 2015, co-funding for the internet forum is being provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[2][5] Several active core group partners, for example SEI, seecon, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, IWA, WASTE have also funded various travel costs of SuSanA members, seminars, the printing of SuSanA publications and so forth.[2]
The activities of the SuSanA network have contributed to increasing awareness about sustainability in the sanitation sector. SuSanA members are helping to shape the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals which may include a goal of universal use of sustainable sanitation services that protect public health and dignity. Other players have picked up on the theme of innovative sanitation (often — but not always — with reuse of excreta in some form), most notably the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Furthermore, SuSanA meetings have moved from being a marginal group to mainstream, e.g. inclusion in AfricaSan in Kigali 2011 and Africa Water Week in Cairo in 2012. Sustainable sanitation has become a topic in the nexus (water, energy, food) dialogue as well as in the WASH and nutrition theme.[citation needed]
SuSanA has also launched a discussion forum (internet forum) in 2011 which has seen a steady growth in members.[4]
SuSanA has been criticised by some in the WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) sector for a perceived dominance of the ecosan theme in SuSanA due to the strong focus of its founding organisations on ecosan: Stockholm Environment Institute and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Others have criticised SuSanA for being too focussed on technologies and sanitation systems (rather than on non-technical issues); that it is too dominated by people from the Global North; too dominated by GIZ who leads the secretariat; and too theoretical and far removed from the realities on the ground. SuSanA has no regional nodes, offices or secretariats. It also has limited impact so far in the non-English speaking parts of the world, notably Latin America, Russia or Central Asia.
The SuSanA core group has reacted to these criticisms by defining a mission statement in 2014, a roadmap for 2013 onwards and by hosting an open discussion forum where such issues can be discussed.[2] SuSanA is continually evolving based on the inputs, requirements and activities by its members.
SuSanA started in January 2007 with a kick-off meeting in Eschborn, Germany at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, an international enterprise owned by the German Federal Government, who has held the secretariat since then. Initially the aim was to only prepare and align various organisations active in sustainable sanitation for the International Year of Sanitation in 2008.
