OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE! CLEAN TEAM AT THE PRESTIGIOUS CIVIL SERVICE AWARDS 2013

November 29, 2013 Editor 0

Inadequate sanitation has now become a global concern and effort is being made to curb this social challenge. Several social enterprises and businesses across the world are ensuring that the 2.5 billion people across the world who don’t have somewhere safe to go to the toilet get access to clean toilets. Clean Team’s focus is to join in this social call to provide innovative sanitation solutions and to help the urban poor enjoy their basic right, which is, access to safe sanitation.

The UK Department of International Development (DFID) has been recognised with a prestigious Civil Service Award for Clean Team Ghana Limited, an independent company in Ghana which was set up by WSUP and Unilever with funding from DFID. The UK Civil Service Awards is organised to celebrate and promote innovation and improvement across the entire breadth of central government.

The Civil Service Awards is the leading awards programme for the Civil Service of the United Kingdom, organised alongside the Cabinet Office celebrating outstanding achievements. The Awards are now in their eighth year and continue to highlight innovative projects within the civil service and spread best practice right across government. The Civil Service Awards provide a unique opportunity to thank the Civil Service for all the valuable work they do – day in, day out.

Department for International Development (DFID) was nominated for the Dame Lesley Strathie Award for Operational Excellence for Clean Team Ghana Limited. Clean Team (now a registered company in Ghana) is a DFID collaboration with Unilever, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) and the design innovation firm IDEO.org, which was launched in April 2012.

The focus is to address the needs of 1billion people in developing countries living without access to adequate sanitation by developing an affordable and sustainable household solution designed for the urban poor, by the urban poor.

Working closely with communities in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, the team has co-created a free standing toilet product that doesn’t require a sewage connection and is both aspirational and low-cost.

Clean Team was one of only fourteen award winners chosen from over 800 nominations. Other nominees selected for the Dame Lesley Strathie Award for Operational Excellence  included Lasting Power of Attorney Digital Team and Tracey Addicott of UK Hydrographic Office.

Sam Parker CEO of Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) and board of director of Clean Team Ghana noted that “ 4,000 children die every day from the effects of inadequate sanitation. That is a shocking statistic. And it is totally avoidable. Those of us lucky enough to be borne into societies where sewerage is the norm never have to make the decision on how much to spend on basic sanitation. It is just there. For billions, it is not. Enlightened governments, committed to ensuring basic sanitation for all their citizens, and willing to commit public finance, is clearly the key starting point. But governments need solutions that work at scale.

WSUP believes that transformative solutions will not be possible without unleashing the power of private enterprise, to complement public investment. Enterprises are needed that provide sanitation as an aspirational service for which people of all income levels are happy to pay, which contribute to healthier families, healthier communities and a cleaner environment. Clean Team aims to provide just such a service and I am proud of our Clean Team staff who have put in so much hard work to build the business to this point. There is a long way to go to make this business ready for repeating in multiple countries, but that is the path we are on, and I fully believe we will get there.”

Clean Team is investing heavily in providing affordable and safe sanitation solutions to the urban poor and the vulnerable people in Ghana.  We believe that safe sanitation is a basic right that every human regardless of wealth must enjoy without any hindrance.

Kofi Yeboah
Communications Officer
Clean Team Ghana

Categories: Innovation, News

Tags: clean team, Department for International Development, ghana, Kumasi, unilever