The Government of Indonesia is striving to improve Fecal Sludge Management (FSM)—which includes containing fecal sludge, desludging, and treating septage in a designated treatment plant—as it is requisite to attain universal access to safely-managed sanitation. One of the key areas for FSM improvement is capacity building for the government’s personnel managing the FSM.
To support that, USAID IUWASH PLUS facilitated two participants, Aldy Mardikanto from the Urban, Housing, and Settlement Directorate of Bappenas and Immanuel Ginting from USAID IUWASH PLUS, to attend the 5th International Fecal Sludge Management Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, from February 18–22, 2019.
The international FSM conference is an annual event organized by the Global Sector Organization Sustainable Sanitation Alliance since 2011. It is a global platform to discuss sustainable solutions to improve access to safely managed sanitation for billions of people worldwide, to formulate policy recommendations that promote best practices, and to identify lessons learned on how to integrate FSM into sanitation service delivery.
Bringing the success of the 4th International FSM conference held in Chennai, the 5th International FSM conference allowed the participants to share good practices and innovation to bring FSM into the next level. Focus of the 5th International FSM conference is to demonstrate that the FSM, as a public service, can be structured and regulated by government, delivered in partnership with private sectors, and organized to attract investment from government, development partners, commercial banks, and private sectors.
During the thematic session of this conference, Aldy Mardikanto represented the Government of Indonesia presented the initiatives of Indonesia’s National and Local Governments in FSM to achieve SDGs 2030. Aldy’s presentation highlighted several progresses that the Government of Indonesia has made in FSM since the 4th International FSM Conference, such as the development of FSM framework. His presentation received positive responses from the participants. They appreciated Indonesia for making good progress in FSM.
“FSM in Indonesia faces a lot of challenges, but it is doable,” said Aldy Mardikanto in his presentation.
Around 1,600 participants consisting of professional workers in sanitation sector, governments, donors, private entities, academics, and journalists from all around the world attended the conference.
-Immanuel Ginting (Kontributor)-
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