As it was worldwide recognised through the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), improved water and sanitation is a basic condition to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.

According to WHO/UNICEF, South Asia is going to meet its MDG drinking water target, but likely to fail in meeting the sanitation target. In order to meet the sanitation target, an additional 115,000 people a day would have to be served "improved" sanitation in 2002–2015. Even though toilets are built in about 3 million households every year in India, the annual rate of increase has been only one per cent in the past decade.

Ecological sanitation ("ecosan") is a market proven cost effective and environmental sound concept that can help to achieve the MDG. The objective of the ecosan concept is to produce a hygienically safe and useful resource out of human wastes, which can not only improve the environmental situation, but also improve living conditions in a sustainable way. Ecosan will particularly help poorer sections of society in India, especially the Dalits.

Ecosan systems enable a sustainable, hygienic and safe recovery of nutrients and water from household wastewater, thus minimising the consumption and pollution of water resources. Nutrients are reused in agriculture, preserving soil fertility and safeguarding long-term food security. Furthermore, ecosan solutions minimise the introduction of pathogens from human excrements into the water cycle, reducing the risks of infections. Ecosan solutions are modular, locally adopted, decentralised partial-flow systems, which makes them more cost-efficient than centralised solutions. As it is possible to integrate on-plot systems into houses, the security for women and girls is also ensured, as it is the user comfort.

The objective of ECOSAN-CAPACITY is to build capacity for the future implementation of ecosan projects, thus increasing the number of ecosan experts in India. Through the carrying out of the project ECOSAN-CAPACITY, the consortium will train different stakeholders on how to implement local adapted ecosan systems. The planned activities will train the participants in different issues, such as general concepts, problem definition, technical options and their components, requirements for the implementation of ecosan modules, monitoring, reuse of nutrients, and development of sustainable solutions for financing partnerships.

Unifying the experiences gathered by the European partners through manifold worldwide ecosan projects, together with the expertise of the Indian partners regarding the local situation and results of first ecosan pilot projects and training, will strengthen the links and the mutual understanding and awareness of environmental issues between EU and Asia with focus on good sanitation practices. This will improve the environmental quality in the growing urban areas of India, particularly benefiting the most vulnerable Dalit population.

The cross-institutional and participatory approach, involving the governmental level, NGOs, RTDs, the private sector (engineers, planners, etc.), and representatives of the civil society (Dalit representatives, etc.), will consolidate a fruitful and continuous exchange among institutions. The partner who represents the local governmental will play a key role in supporting the improvement of policy cohesiveness. In order to ensure the sustainability of the gained capacity, one important part of the foreseen training sessions is the module "ECOSAN - KEEP ON DOING", in which the participants will be trained in how to establish and to consolidate a permanent planning and implementation platform for ecosan in India, including durable EU-Asia exchange and joint initiatives.