Mission

FINISH seeks to improve sanitation and thereby, living and economic conditions of poor rural and periurban households, through economic incentives, primarily enhancing financial inclusion of these households.

Vision and Objective

Vision To bring about a visible change in sanitary, hygienic conditions and health standards in India.

Goal Improved sanitation systems for 1,000,000 financially included households in different states of India.
Objectives

1.To provide sanitation facilities at the household level through a combination of microcredits by MFIs with a sanitation portfolio (capacities are built under the programme) and health insurance incentives. 2.To establish a financially sustainable sanitation improvement mechanism through public private partnership. 3.To develop information resource base for future programmes and demonstrable indicators linking health and sanitation. 4.To provide livelihood benefits to poorer sections and mainstream gender aspects.
Expected Results

1.1 MFIs offer sanitation loans as part of their loan product portfolio 1.2 MFI marketing channels for micro-insurance products developed 2.1 Sustainable sanitation support services set up established 2.2 Financial closure through mixing of commercial and non-commercial funding thereby pursuing sanitation MDGs 3.1 Programme management, monitoring, evaluation, impact and dissemination structures established (relations health, sanitation, grant and non-grant financing sanitation) 4.1 Livelihood for 10,000 people, primarily women, established

About Us History

Programme FINISH

The Financial Inclusion Improves Sanitation and Health (FINISH) programme has been conceived by its promoters TATA-AIG, SNS-REAAL, UNU-MERIT, BISWA, WASTE with the objective of expanding sanitation coverage in rural India, at the same time providing basic health insurance cover to the to be included population. Though the number of promoters and partners at present is limited, FINISH seeks to enlist the support and involvement of more similarly oriented partners as well as leveraging resources with schemes of government and non-governmental agencies operating in rural India with similar objectives. The ultimate objective is to enable the emergence of a rural society whose health is improved not only through better sanitation facilities but also by an improved knowledge and awareness of the concept of "total sanitation". How it started: At the end of 2007, SNS-REAAL Bank of Netherlands were negotiating with BISWA (Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency, Sambalpur Orissa) the conditions of a US$ 2 Million loan meant to support BISWAs sanitation drive. The two organisations that facilitated the negotiations -- TATA-AIG and WASTE, saw it as an opportunity for integrating sanitation, micro finance and micro health insurance. Intuitively integrating these made a lot of sense. A common understanding was thus agreed upon. Yet there was also a need to link financial inclusion with sanitation and health which was rather difficult in the absence of authentic academic or scientific data to back this concept. Fortunately the United Nations University (UNU)/MERIT, at an early stage, saw the opportunities to scientifically identify the possible correlation between financial inclusion, health and sanitation. The 5 parties (TATA-AIG, UNU/MERIT, SNS-REAAL, BISWA and WASTE) prepared the basic concept describing the Ambitious Goal of providing 1 million sanitation systems in 5 years in India. On 18 March 2008 the Programme Partners signed an agreement to develop the partnership further. Around the time the Crown Prince and Princess of the Netherlands were in India on a State Visit, and the signing took place in the presence of - indeed - the Crown Prince. The concept caught the eye of the Partners for Water (an NGO) who supported the initiative through a development grant in May 2008. During the latter part of 2008 meetings were held in India and the Netherlands on the details, implementation partners, application criteria, insurance scheme, the financial engineering, monitoring and impact evaluation mechanisms and the cooperation structure, culminating into a programme document. DGIS (Department of International Cooperation, Govt of Netherlands) recognized the high potential of the partnership and its highly innovative character and provided useful inputs. For instance it suggested involving the Indian government. To the Programme Partners, it was not immediately obvious who would be the most logical choice. State governments would be difficult as, from a risk mitigation point of view; FINISH was going to be implemented in different areas and states.

Mr. Vijay Athreye (VP, TATA-AIG) with crown Prince of Netherlands So a short-term Consultant was engaged to investigate the matter and advice the possible options. Following high-level discussions with all relevant organisations the Consultant recommended a focus on Development Finance Institutions, often nicknamed State Banks. Among the various Banks approached, the National Housing Bank (NHB) was very responsive. A MoU Between NH Bank and WASTE was signed in early 2009.Further a draft MoU was agreed upon with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) too. Reportedly the necessary government clearances have been obtained by NABARD recently and the MoU is likely to be signed shortly. The grant portion of the programme estimated at about 9% of the totals funding was expected from two main interested parties namely, DGIS of the Netherlands and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF, USA). While the DGIS funding materialised on 1 May 2009 the BMGF grant is under review. Commercial funding comprises well over 90% of the programme. It turns out that this novel partnership in the shape of FINISH Programme proves a much needed risk mitigation assurance for investors and therefore financing should not be a formidable problem. The Programme Management Board has already been constituted and held two meetings. The Programme office has been established started functioning at Delhi. At present 5 Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) have been identified and roped in as the implementing partners who have put for themselves a total target of effecting construction of over 235,000 toilets in

about 2495 villages/urban slums during the current year. Negotiations are on with a few more MFIs to bring more areas under the FINISH Programme from the next year.

Partners
Supporting Partners:

Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA) National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD ) National Housing Bank (NHB) SNS-REAAL Asset Management Arm TATA-AIG Life Insurance Ltd. UNU-MERIT, Maastricht, The Netherlands WASTE, The Netherlands

Implementing Partners:

Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA) Bharathi Women Development Centre (BWDC) Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF) SAMBHAV Social Service Organization The Institute of Integrated Rural Development (IIRD) Nageshwara Charitable Trust Rural Development Organisation Setu-Seva Bharti Trust Aravli Serv- Seva Education Trust (ASSET) Navya Disha

Program Structure/Team

From the chairmans desk

Since a number of years we have been working on FINISH. Initially on the concepts, early partners, its financial engineering, and since one year or so on its implementation. The latter part I would like to elaborate upon. The implementation did no go as planned. Of course FINISH partners were badly affected by the financial crisis. It was much more difficult for our partners to get loans. Also we get less grant money than we had hoped and planned for. Yet, there were also internal aspects, where we can have no one but ourselves to blame. Whilst communication between the various partners has been an issue and sadly remains an issue, it is in the field of sanitation that the differences were most widely seen and felt. Sanitation is not rocket science, yet it is a misconception to assume there is no science behind it. The sanitation field is rife with misunderstandings despite the best intentions. The most common one is: sanitation is a toilet! This is similar to saying I have four wheels, so I have a car. A toilet is a part of sanitation, true, the part that is usually visible and provides its users privacy and comfort. The invisible part of sanitation, typically what is underground, and related hygiene determine whether sanitation is safe or not. If my neighbour has a safe sanitation system and I do not, and we share the same drinking well, is he really getting more healthy? How many people in the village should have a safe sanitation before we can really measure health improvements? Very difficult questions to answer, yet these are highly relevant from the villagers perspective. The more the better, but hydro-geological and social-economic conditions differ too much to pinpoint at an exact percentage. FINISH focuses on increasing safe sanitation coverage in a village and making the percentage as high as possible by using amongst others output based aid. So the safe sanitation is a toilet, the safe treatment and disposal of human excreta coupled with hygiene and that with as high sanitation densities as possible. This is what the sanitation in FINISH is all about. Clear! Well, yes and no, particularly safe treatment is a source of confusion. A very clear example of this is the septic tank. What is it, what does it do and what does it not do. A septic tank is a treatment system and as such has an inlet and outlet (and a pipe for letting out gases). It does not treat up to safe standards and it does generate sludge. So to make a septic tank safe, proper outlet and disposal arrangements need to be included. Many septic tanks we have seen have no outlet, no pipe, are never desludged, and so on. As an outsider I was a little surprised by this as the septic tank is very well described in the

Indian standards viz.) Like this there are many available referential resources which are little known and hence not used. We believe it is our task and duty to make these resources known, certainly to our partners, but to the community at large. Now if people working on the subject have such different ideas, what about the users. In the case of finish those that take a loan for sanitation. Convincing them in all honesty makes only sense if first of all they get a safe sanitation system, that is affordable and that gives them returns in terms of privacy (the toilet) and better health. The latter includes behaviourial aspects such as perhaps hygiene elements. In this respect we are very happy to partner with consumer organisation such as TATA-AIG. The micro-life insurance products currently marketed by them are jus like sanitation supply side oriented. So sanitation materials have to be developed, adopted from existing government and other sources to cater to different consumer groups, tested in the field and perhaps again adapted. Poor sanitation is a cause of bad health, we all know or as a minimum accept this. But can this be quantified using sufficiently large sample size and over time. Naturally this has to be done by people with the right scientific background and independent minds. Therefore we are very happy to partner with UNU/MERIT and IFS Perhaps, they give us results in such detail that actuaries of insurance companies can do their calculations, or perhaps not in which case they will should report on this. If our central themes do not make sense in practice, we trust that the academics point this out in clear terms. We all learn as much from what works as what does not work. Insurance is important from another angle. For a villager to be financially included, he or she needs more than micro-credit. Insurance coverage is also important. One would argue access to saving schemes too, but this is under legislation, so what we can consider as of now, is access to micro-credit and micro-insurance should give people safety nets and the means to get out of poverty. Targeting health should help some to get out of the poverty trap too. Having as chief agents of change, be it sanitation animators, insurance agents, people from the village itself, and by listening to them, we should be able to work out systems that they want and are willing to pay for. Perhaps not all of them, but sufficient number of people to warrant the efforts of our MFI partner. This inter alia is what most of our MFI investors are looking for. Yet we should not forget that they also look for reasonable returns.