Make a Splash!

New in 2011 Project Innovation Awards – Development

Celebrating excellence and innovation in water and sanitation projects in low and middle income countries

Do you have an innovative water engineering project that is applied in a low and middle income country? If so, then enter it into the IWA Project Innovation Awards – Development series and be recognised for originality, innovation and engineering excellence. Following reflection on the geographical scope of the original PIA Awards, IWA is now launching the development of an award category specific to low and middle income countries. This category will aim to “recognize and celebrate excellence and innovation in water and sanitation projects in developing countries” and will be presented biennially during the IWA Development Congress - the first such ceremony taking place at the 2^nd Development Congress in Malaysia, 21-24 November 2011.

Summary

·         The scope of the Award covers water supply and sanitation  in low and middle income countries, in urban and peri-urban situations;

·         Projects can focus on hardware, (physical infrastructure) or on software (advocacy, outreach, public educational campaigns, publicity efforts, etc.) or on applied research;

·          Projects should demonstrate innovation and sustainability;

·          Project entries must be operational for a minimum of 6 months, but no older than 2 years.

Rationale for the award

·         To support processes of fostering innovation in service delivery in developing countries, and placing effort in embedding innovative practices amongst practitioners;

·         To develop a more diverse IWA Project Innovation Award series, including projects drawn from low and middle income countries, currently lacking in the main Award;

·         To provide recognition for new solutions to existing challenges in support of international efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs);

Submission categories

Entries may be submitted under one of two primary categories

·          Drinking Water Supply

·          Sanitation and Wastewater

Within each category, projects which fall within one or more of the following sub-categories will be eligible for consideration:

·          Applied research

·          Hardware

·          Software

One winner and one honour awardee will be allocated per primary award category (thus, a maximum of 12 awardees will be recognised).