New funding boosts research on sustainable sanitation in flooded areas in India.
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) has granted Stockholm Environment Institute 3.9 million SEK for a three-year project on sustainable sanitation research, living examples and communications in India.
In collaboration with the WASH Institute in India, SEI will focus on sustainable sanitation in flooded areas in the Indian state Bihar.
Although the project is state-focused the results are likely to be of global relevance since there is limited knowledge on how to provide sustainable sanitation services in flooded areas.
“This project will raise awareness of a problem that silently affects millions of individuals, be it regular floods every year or catastrophes that come with unexpected torrential flooding,” says SEI’s project leader Cecilia Ruben.
SEI, in collaboration with UNICEF-India, has facilitated the inclusion of the ecological sanitation component into the TSC Guidelines, paving the way for a nationwide implementation of more sustainable sanitation services
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Sustainable Sanitation in Emergency & Reconstruction 
The SIDA grant for research on sustainable sanitation in flooded areas of Bihar is under process of implementation. As a first step to implement this project SEI and Wash Institute will hire an agency to conduct research on the needs of individuals and communities in flooded areas in regard to sanitation services and identify approaches that will increase the demand for sanitation services to reduce and eventually eliminate open defecation. The study will specifically target the vulnerable communities and assesss the current sanitation situation during floods , after floods and in mid between for HHs , schools etc. The five districts in which study will be conducted is Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa, Araria and Khagaria all falling in the Koshi region of Bihar. This study will be also helpful for the Word bank supported Koshi rehabilitation project to plan, design appropriate sanitation solution to 100,000 proposed houses. Government of Bihar and World Bank has signed the 200 million USD contract for Koshi rehabilitation.
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