Results: The study demonstrates that iJal users reported notable fewer incidences of illness among family members compared to non-users, 78% of the users reported no illness compared to 40% among the controls last 2 weeks. Moreover, better hygiene habits were observed among iJal users, contributing to improved health outcomes. Additionally, iJal users experienced fewer days off work (64% users vs 49% controls reported 0 days off work due to illness) and (35%% users vs. 45% controls reported 0 day out of school) last 2 weeks. Families with iJal water reported meaningfully fewer hospitalizations (97% vs. 60% had 0 days at hospital) last 2 weeks, resulting in better economic outcomes for families with access to iJal water. The results for last 6 months reinforce these outcomes. The KOLs confirmed the improved health of the households. In iJal villages, the health impact was associated with the water quality.

Conclusion: this study highlights the importance of safe water access, such as iJal water stations, in combating waterborne diseases and improving the health and socioeconomic well-being of communities. It emphasizes the need for sustainable, affordable, and community-driven interventions to ensure safe water access and improve public health in India.Download Reporthttps://safewaternetwork.docsend.com/view/jr3sh258pbm62h9d

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Globally, Threats to Urban Water Security are a cause for Concern

Today, 55% of the global population lives in cities. About 1.42 billion people, including 450 million children, live in areas with high or extremely high water vulnerability1. According to UNESCO, an estimated 150-200 million people will be permanently displaced due to climatic factors by 20502. Population growth, urbanization, and climate change are widening the demand-supply gap for water, making water availability and access a challenge for farms, factories, and people. Additionally, many cities suffer from an uneven demand-supply ratio, with underserved urban and peri-urban pockets of water scarcity. The lack of integrated water supply and management systems puts pressure on the already depleting water sources, potentially compromising the UN Sustainable Development Goals. SDG 6.4 aims to address water scarcity by increasing water-use efficiency and ensuring sustainable water withdrawals. The Water and Climate Coalition, launched in March 2021, provides strategic guidance on integrating the water and climate agenda for making water safe and secure cities.

How India is addressing the water crisis

The annual per capita availability of water in India has declined to 1,486 cubic meters in 2021. By 2050, at least 30 Indian cities will face a grave water risk, according to the World Wide Fund 2020 report. This risk is aggravated by poor management of water sources, contaminated supplies, leaky distribution networks, and vast volumes of untreated wastewater that are poured into the river bodies. It is projected that the population of cities will rise from the current 17% in 2020 to 51% in 2050. To mitigate these challenges, the Government of India has introduc

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The post City Water Compendium: Making Cities Water Positive appeared first on Safe Water Network.

Special thanks to the following supporters of this work:

• Conrad N. Hiltion Foundation
• Engineers without Borders
• Envicom
• Stone Family Foundation
• Whitten & Roy

Download Reporthttps://safewaternetwork.docsend.com/view/44ney3bpcjdsbhni

The post Making Piped Water to Households Affordable and Available appeared first on Safe Water Network.

The post India Sector Review 2023 appeared first on Safe Water Network.

According to USAID Acting Mission Director Karen Klimowski, “We believe access to water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities is essential to ensure gender equality and economic progress. We are proud to mobilize and support women’s participation at a local level in the decision-making process to plan, design, construct, and run these water kiosks and community initiatives which are ensuring safe drinking water for all while generating economic opportunities for women.

Upon the report's release, it generated numerous press articles across India:

The report "Rethinking Gender Equality Through the Lens of Economic Empowerment in Water," can be downloaded here. 

This report is an important aspect of our on-going effort to share our findings in the field, working with other like-minded organizations and funders. Safe Water Network's Knowledge Hub contains a plethora of reports, sector reviews, and field insights covering a variety of water sector subjects including operations, financial sustainability, health impacts, and gender. 

For more information, contact one of our offices in Ghana, India, or New York. 

 https://safewaternetwork.docsend.com/view/nqcsvrfhc3m57pe9

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SWEs often need viability gap funding to ensure sustainability while keeping prices affordable. The water revenues do not cover the Information Education and Communication (IEC) costs, Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) costs, Water Quality Testing, and Field Supervision costs essential to reliable service delivery. These costs are often funded through philanthropic grants such as CSR or Subsidies.

Our analysis of the operating and financial performance of the SWEs set up by various SWE Implementers across India under the SWE Alliance identifies the level to which these SWEs can fund themselves from the daily water sale revenue and what subsidy is required so that they can function reliably. This report highlights the success factors that determine not just viability but operational and financial sustainability of these enterprises over the long term: (a) Cluster-level O&M support required for the ATMs, (b) Consumer Trust and continuous engagement for behavior change, (c) Need for an Asset Renewal Fund for long-term capital needs, (d) Financial Discipline among communities and social entrepreneurs, (e) An affordable Pricing and equitable distribution ensures that no one is left behind by including all the sections of the society, and (f) an approach to Relocate the unviable or unproductive ATMs to preserve capital invested.

SWEs need an average subsidy of $1000-1400 per annum to cover the Cluster management costs while ensuring affordability to the most underprivileged communities. The actual subsidy is a function of many factors, including population served, demand generated, pricing, willingness to pay, the proximity of SWEs in the cluster, raw water quality, community involvement, and ownership, among many others.

Download Reporthttps://safewaternetwork.docsend.com/view/hj6bwba66mjzzwzz

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The post 2023 Beyond the Pipe Forum Summary: Strategies to Make Water ATMs Sustainable appeared first on Safe Water Network.

This directive affected Safe Water Network Ghana and our 90+ water stations providing access to safe drinking water to over 400,000 people across nine regions in Ghana. In effect, revenue inflow to sustain the stations ceased while some variable costs increased as demand for production grew.

We set four key objectives to keep safe water flowing and comply with the government mandate:

1. Ensure adequate supply of treated water to meet the needs of our consumers whilst implementing all the safety protocols to reduce the likelihood of COVID-19 infections for both staff and consumers.
2. Ensure minimal impact on our operational capacity to provide free water.
3. Solicit financial support from government and other private partners to compensate for lost revenue from direct water sales.
4. Draw and disseminate learnings from the mandate period to guide future programs.

In this report, we detail how Safe Water Network Ghana achieved these key objectives and provide an overview of the financial impact of the mandate on our water station operations. Ultimately, this experience provided a testing ground for the adaptability of our stations to react during a public health crisis. The outcome was not only a testament to the resiliency of safe water enterprises, but also highlights the role of SWEs in enabling access to safe water in a public health crisis.Read the Reporthttps://safewaternetwork.docsend.com/view/ckyd4xhswpdtmubs

The post Insights from the Free Water Mandate in Ghana appeared first on Safe Water Network.

Sign up for more info on the Safe Water Resiliency Toolkit:

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Safe water enterprises (SWEs) are uniquely positioned to capture data on customer perceptions. The capabilities and incentives of SWEs align with the pursuits of social impact evaluation, which presents an opportunity for implementers to contribute a rich layer of social impact data to the existing body of research, while simultaneously improving service delivery and financial sustainability. While the impact investing market has grown 10 times since 2012, WASH projects make up only 6% of assets under management.

The Community of Practice (CoP) for SWEs launched a Social Impact Measurement Initiative to tackle this challenge through a collaborative project with 14 SWEs. The project included a survey, follow-up interviews, workshops, and small working groups. The findings from this initiative highlighted areas of improvement, but they also helped the CoP define the role of SWEs in social impact evaluation and highlight the unique assets of the SWE model that make them ideal to collect customer-centric data.

Findings from the Social Impact Measurement Initiative are as follows:

• Demonstrating causation is challenging for WASH interventions
• Customer attribution is a powerful tool to demonstrate social impact
• Implementers are uniquely poised to deliver customer attribution data
• There is an appetite for collaboration and benchmarking among safe water enterprises

Read the Reporthttps://safewaternetwork.docsend.com/view/t49idkvpyw55uxxv

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