Participants said in order to ensure last mile connectivity and to meet the goal of Clean Water and Sanitation under SDG 6 and Good Health and well-being under SDG 3, micro finance institutions (MFIs) were willing to go the whole hog to make this a reality.
This was decided at a workshop on WASH Financing and Collaborations for Sustainable Development Goals held by FINISH Mondial–India in Lucknow on Thursday.
The event was attended by members from banking and micro-finance sector along with experts from the environment sector. The panelists included Rakesh Dubey, DGM FI and Development, RBI; Sudhir Sinha CEO, UP Microfinance Association; Anup Singh, MD, Sonata Finance Pvt Ltd; Rajesh Mishra, CEO, Samavesh Finserve Pvt Ltd; Bharat Singh, VP Operations Satin Credit care. The discussion was moderated by Chander Mahadev, media advisor, TOP Trust. Some of the highlights that featured at the workshop was the possibility of leveraging WASH businesses through O&M activities of SBM 2.0 and Jal Jeevan Mission.
Abhijit Banerji, FINISH Mondial Country head, said MFIs need to align themselves with SDGs.
In a live video message, Bonani Roychaudhury, MD, Nabsamruddhi Finance Ltd, under NABARD announced signing of an MoU with FINISH Mondial for promoting Climate Resilient WASH.
Prof Ajai Prakash of Lucknow University and Ajai Prakash of BBAU also shared their views on the topic. Salil Srivastava from Tata Trust and Shobhit Mishra from Microsave Consultancy delved on WASH businesses and financing, respectively.
