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Future of Sanitation: How the UN Is Rethinking Toilets, Technology, and Investment | Dominic O’Neill

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How can innovative sanitation solutions and non-sewered toilets help solve the global sanitation crisis? By making sanitation more water-efficient, climate-resilient, and investable, communities can gain access to safely managed sanitation without relying solely on expensive traditional sewer systems.

On the ZuLoo Poodcast, Jocelyn and Darin sit down with Dominic O’Neill of the UN’s Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF) to explore the future of sanitation financing, non-sewered sanitation, and water-efficient toilet technology.

Dominic shares how witnessing a cholera epidemic in Rwandan refugee camps sparked a career spanning more than three decades in sanitation. Today, his work focuses on making sanitation more investable and helping governments, businesses, and financial institutions build sustainable sanitation economies.

From off-grid sanitation and fecal sludge management to climate-resilient technology and nature-based wastewater treatment, Dominic explains why traditional sewer infrastructure cannot be the only solution and why the world may be on the verge of a sanitation technology revolution.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

✅ Why sanitation continues to receive less investment and attention than other global health priorities.

✅ How non-sewered sanitation and off-grid toilet systems can provide safely managed sanitation where traditional sewer infrastructure is impractical.

✅ Why water-efficient and climate-resilient sanitation technology could play a major role in the future of toilets and wastewater management.

✅ How the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund is helping governments, financial institutions, SMEs, and entrepreneurs build stronger sanitation economies and attract investment.

Timestamps

00:00 The Future of Sanitation: How the UN Is Rethinking Toilets, Technology, and Investment
02:02 Meet Dominic O’Neill of the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund
02:41 How Dominic’s sanitation career began
03:40 Witnessing cholera in the Rwandan refugee camps
06:25 Why sanitation continues to be overlooked
07:30 Making sanitation investable
09:51 How the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund approaches the sanitation crisis
12:59 What sanitation can learn from off-grid energy
14:13 Why non-sewered sanitation isn’t only for developing countries
16:51 Fecal sludge management and next-generation sanitation
20:25 The most promising water-efficient sanitation technologies
24:07 How policy could accelerate non-sewered sanitation
26:03 How the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund actually works
28:30 The human impact of safe sanitation
32:22 What success looks like over the next five to ten years
33:46 A preview of SHF’s work in menstrual health

Key Takeaways

🔹 Sanitation needs a new investment model. Dominic explains that solving the sanitation crisis requires moving beyond individual pit latrines and expensive centralized sewer systems toward solutions that can attract sustainable public and private investment.

🔹 Non-sewered sanitation can be a powerful alternative. Off-grid systems can provide safely managed sanitation in communities where sewer connections are financially, geographically, or practically impossible.

🔹 Water efficiency will be critical. Dominic sees water-efficient systems, including closed-loop and dry sanitation technologies, as particularly promising as communities face increasing water-security and climate challenges.

🔹 Sanitation changes everyday lives. Safe sanitation can create jobs, protect public health, and give women greater safety and dignity, particularly in dense informal settlements where leaving home to use a toilet can expose them to violence.

About Dominic O’Neill

Dominic O’Neill has spent more than three decades working in sanitation and international development. His interest in the sector began while studying environmental health and deepened after witnessing a cholera epidemic in Rwandan refugee camps early in his career.

Today, Dominic works with the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF), part of the United Nations system, where the focus is on creating the conditions necessary to expand investment in sanitation and hygiene.

Rather than acting as a traditional investor, SHF works as a catalyst and support facility, helping analyze sanitation markets, strengthen government policy, support sanitation enterprises, engage financial institutions, and identify opportunities to build sustainable sanitation economies.

Website: https://www.shfund.org/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dominic-o-neill-b9960772

Resources & Links

ZuLoo Humanitarian https://zuloo.org/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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