Executive Director - Jon Lane
Jon Lane, OBE, is a Civil Engineer by profession. He began his career as a consulting engineer in London before moving to international development work and specifically water and sanitation for poor people. In the late 1980s Jon Lane worked as Country Representative in Nepal for WaterAid. Returning to UK, he became Director of RedR (Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief) and in 1994 was appointed Director of WaterAid. During his term of office, the organisation received the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize for outstanding water-related activities, while Jon himself was honoured with an OBE for his leadership of WaterAid.
Jon Lane left the London-based NGO in 1999 to live in Malawi and work as a senior-level consultant in water and sanitation, primarily for multilateral and bilateral agencies and NGOs. His work during that period mainly involved global strategy, policy and advocacy work.
Additionally, Jon Lane has chaired or been a member of the steering committees of several prominent water and sanitation sector organisations.
Jon Lane has been an active member of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council from its inception, having attended the New Delhi meeting in 1990 at which WSSCC was created. He has been involved in some of WSSCC's key milestone moments, including Vision 21, which established many of the principles that still guide WSSCC's activities, and its periodic Global Forums, which bring its members together to reaffirm priorities and plans.
In January 2007, Jon Lane was appointed Interim Executive Director of WSSCC to lead the organisation during its period of revival. He then applied successfully for the post of Executive Director to which he was appointed in October 2007. His special passion in this work is to give sanitation and hygiene much greater global prominence and recognition.