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WASH Away Inequity: Lack of Access to Safe Water is the Most Crippling Obstacle Limiting Human Potential
On World Water Day, consider that 844 million people (nearly 1 in 9) lack a drinking water source that is accessible within a 30-minute round trip from their home. But though this problem can be solved by installing a tap or rain harvesting system, the upfront cost of up to $200 is often prohibitive for people living in poverty. Water.org co-founder and CEO Gary White highlights the power of the poor, when given affordable financing, to provide their own solution to the global water crisis.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing, WASH
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A Business Accelerator Puts India’s Urban WASH Challenges Front and Center
India's cities are plagued by multiple water, sanitation and hygiene challenges, from inadequate drinking water to low sewerage network coverage. Private sector innovators and entrepreneurs are tackling these challenges with new technologies, products, services and business models. But their successes are inconsequential compared with the scale of the problem. Niyatee Goyal and Aditya Tejas at Ennovent discuss a USAID-supported platform that's addressing these problems on several fronts – including through a business accelerator.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Health Care, Technology, WASH
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Making WASH Sexy: An Often Neglected Sector Comes Into Its Own
In a social business landscape littered with apps and accelerators, WASH doesn’t come across as the sexiest of sectors. So when NextBillion launched its August focus on WASH, we editors weren’t expecting words like “hope” and “innovation” and “opportunity” to be thrown around a lot. But they were. And as the month ends, we’re feeling – dare we say it – excited about the long-term future of water, sanitation and hygiene, and about the businesses focused on improving them.
- Categories
- Health Care, NextBillion Originals, WASH
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Empowering the Period: How Erasing the Menstruation Taboo Can Fight Extreme Poverty
Educated girls have smaller families and raise healthier and better-educated children. But a lack of supplies, toilets and privacy, compounded by fear and shame in an atmosphere that stigmatizes menstruation, prevent many impoverished girls from attending school once they reach puberty. There are some signs of positive change, however, with a growing number of organizations talking about “empowering the period.”
- Categories
- Education, Health Care, WASH
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Reinventing the toilet
Traditional flush toilets aren’t an option in many parts of the world, but neither is leaving people with unsafe and unhygenic choices. Now, one company is piloting a new loo that's waterless, off-grid and able to charge your phone. Lina Zeldovich travels to Madagascar to witness the start of a lavatorial revolution.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How to Transform Sanitation Access for Women and Girls in Vietnam
In rural Vietnam, 30% of families lack access to sanitation facilities that meet basic hygiene standards. The lack of access to sanitation disproportionately affects women and girls, who face numerous adverse health effects and safety risks as a result. To address this issue, PSI Vietnam, with support from philanthropist Camilla Hagen Sørli and the Maverick Collective, is working to build a sustainable sanitation market that will increase access to toilets for women and girls in rural areas.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Contest For Biz Students Is All About Umbilical Cords
Business students are used to thinking about how to sell a new shampoo or a new app for a phone. Last week they were asked to put their strategic brains to another use: Figuring out the best way to convince health workers and new parents in Nigeria to apply a potentially life-saving antiseptic to the baby's umbilical cord stump.
- Categories
- Health Care
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