HOW WE WORK

NFSSM Alliance has established key thematic areas as the focus to drive forward sector outcomes by collaborating to work closely with government on policies, generating knowledge, enabling cross-learning, and building key narratives to further the Inclusive Sanitation Agenda. The Alliance operates and fosters collaborative action toward safe and inclusive sanitation through its 4 Taskforces, Steering Committee, and Secretariat.

The Secretariat

As the backbone of the Alliance, Dasra executes the foundational role of supporting and guiding the growth of the Alliance and providing support to achieve sectoral goals, through the following functions:

1) Strengthening the Alliance’s institutional structures and operations through financial management, establishing guidelines and protocols, management and codification of knowledge

2) Enabling collaboration amongst Alliance partners by driving consensus towards collective sectoral vision of safe and inclusive sanitation, curating knowledge, mainstreaming narratives among key stakeholders while building the brand of the Alliance

3) Facilitating government engagement towards relevant policy actions and building momentum on sectoral priorities by enabling collaborative action through its Taskforces and members

Steering Committee

The Alliance is governed by the Steering Committee, which is a body of 7 sector experts who are elected representatives from the Alliance that provides strategic direction to the Alliance priorities and vision.
The Steering Committee supports the operationalizing of the Alliance by guiding the functioning and governance, gives strategic direction to the Taskforces, and advises on the alignment and implementation of the Alliance priorities with sectoral goals. The Steering Committee brings their expertise and experience to guide the Alliance towards achieving its vision of safely managed inclusive sanitation.

Sakshi Gudwani

Senior Program Officer, WSH

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Srikanth Viswanathan

CEO

Jangraaha Centre for Citizenship

Anindita Mukherjee

Associate Fellow

Centre for Policy Research

Malini Reddy

Director WASH - South Asia

Athena Infonomics

Meera Mehta

Professor Emeritus, Joint Director

Centre for Water and Sanitation, CEPT

Sandhya Haribal

Senior Project Manager

CDD Society

Srinivas Chary

Director

Administrative Staff College of India

Taskforces

Even though India has made major strides in the field of water and sanitation, several challenges still exist when it comes to sustaining the impact of these interventions and reaching the last mile to ensure sanitation for all. The nature of India’s urban sanitation challenges is not only complex but is also quickly evolving with every passing day. This calls for multidisciplinary action from a diverse set of stakeholders working across various thematic areas and geographies. As a community of practice, the NFSSM Alliance has leveraged the strength of its collective network of partners into four critical areas- Inclusivity, Urban Local Body Strengthening, Innovations and Technology, and Communications through four dedicated Taskforces.

These Taskforces bring together partners with thematic expertise to deliberate on and identify solutions and levers to close the gaps in these four areas. Through its four task forces, the NFSSM Alliance.

encourages partnerships and promotes the exchange of ideas and best practices,
highlights and shares different models to build efficiencies in service delivery,
develops a unified message for greater influence at the sector level, and
• Collectively drives inclusive sanitation as a viable solution to waste management.

Taskforces are engines for driving policy actions and design and recommendations across thematic areas with support from national and state governments.

Inclusivity Taskforce

The Inclusivity Taskforce serves as a platform of experts that work together to codify knowledge and work closely in support from key decision-makers to ensure that the sanitation needs of women, the urban poor, persons with disability, and other socially and economically marginalized groups are met across the sanitation service delivery chain.

The Inclusivity Taskforce seeks to address these issues to ensure no one is left behind by first identifying existing gaps and barriers to inclusion in urban sanitation and using this knowledge to make a case for prioritizing inclusion by mutually working together with the government. Additionally, the taskforce is also committed to amplifying the voices of the vulnerable by understanding their challenges and proposing solutions based on robust research

Co-Chair: Anju Dwivedi, Elisa Patnaik

Innovation and Technology Taskforce

The Innovation and Technology Taskforce builds knowledge and garners support by consolidating siloed efforts towards a technological transformation across the sanitation value chain and its operations.

This taskforce focuses on exploring newer technologies modeled around the principles of human-centric design and innovation, understanding their applicability in the Indian sanitation context. Additionally, the Taskforce works towards creating an enabling environment for improving the uptake of innovative technologies for faecal sludge and septage management. It supports efforts to scale best practices in the area of innovation by building a robust body of evidence and leads strategic advisory with key stakeholders in the public and private space.

Co-Chair: Srinivas Chary, Sasanka Velidandla

Urban Local Bodies Strengthening Taskforce

The Urban Local Bodies Strengthening (ULB-S) Taskforce serves as an advisory body to address issues emanating from limited resources and inadequate institutional capacities of urban local bodies that impede the delivery of sanitation services that are equitable and inclusive in cities and towns. This taskforce provides targeted recommendations, and support for capability building and works collaboratively with city governments so that they can provide high-quality and sustainable sanitation services based on research to identify existing gaps in city service delivery, financial allocation, and functionary capacities.

The ULB-S Taskforce strives towards the goal of improved municipal financing for sustained sanitation operations, enhances municipal administration and capacities of local governments with a focus on service delivery

Co-Chair: Meera Mehta, Sakshi Gudwani

Communications Taskforce

The primary objective of the Communications Taskforce (CTF) is to raise the decibel level for faecal sludge and septage management as a long-term priority among the government, media, the private sector, and the general public. To this end, the taskforce works on developing tools and consolidating best practices for strategic behavioral change communications that are rooted in research and evidence.

The Communications Taskforce focuses on identifying communication gaps, increasing collaboration, collating research, highlighting the need for resources, amplifying a collective voice, and disseminating results to stakeholders across the sanitation value chain. The basic motive is to develop a single language for India’s sanitation ecosystem by guiding not only the Alliance members but also the complete sanitation value chain to a sustainable approach for effective and efficient communication on FSSM.