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access
to
water
and
sanitation
for
all
for water and sanitation as well as water and sanitation access
at the base of the economic pyramid.
In Indonesia and the Philippines, Water.org is partnering
with rural and municipal water utilities to enable financing
for household water connections. In addition to paying in
cash to connect to the utility water system, households can
pay cash instalments to the utility company or take out a
loan from a microfinance institution. Similarly, Water.org is
working with financial partners in Kenya as well as Indonesia
to facilitate loans to water utilities for infrastructure exten-
sion and service improvements to boost availability and the
quality of services.
In addition to working with water utilities, Water.org is
engaging the supply chain. In India, Water.org provides tech-
nical assistance and grants to scale up and expand operations
for two supply chain enterprises – one social business manu-
factures and distributes toilet kits to rural villages, and the
other provides access to clean drinking water, both using
local entrepreneurs via a decentralised distribution model,
among other methods.
Water.org is also pursuing scale by offering WaterCredit
via groups of institutions, with technical assistance designed
using the evidence generated to date.
Similarly, in India Water.org is engaging several partners
to accelerate an ecosystem for WSS financing in both the
public and private sectors. Partnering with UNICEF to inte-
grate finance availability into its demand creation programs
among households for water and sanitation, Water.org works
closely with both commercial banks and microfinance part-
ners to align lending where UNICEF is activating community
demand. This includes channelling financing to remote rural
areas via the India Post Payments Bank and self-help groups
linked to the State Rural Livelihoods Missions, a government-
managed program.
Lastly, WaterEquity, a Water.org innovation, unlocks afford-
able social investment capital to help microfinance institutions
and other enterprises to scale their water and sanitation efforts
to meet market demand. It provides a variety of financial
instruments and technical assistance to microfinance institu-
tions to help them launch loan portfolios. The loans enable the
world’s poor to pay for a connection to a water source or install
a toilet in their homes.
With these innovations, Water.org is highlighting the fact
that ending open defecation and ensuring basic access to
water and safe sanitation to everyone, everywhere, by 2030
cannot be achieved without WSS financing mechanisms.
The leader of three joint-liabilty women's groups in Palanjogihalli, India. Her
sanitation loan bought a toilet for her family and is now in repayment
Image: Water.org
Image: Water.org