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Water.Org Skoll Awardee Profile Water.org Skoll Awardee Profile Organization Overview Key Info Social Entrepreneur Gary White Year Awarded 2009 Issue Area Addressed Economic Opportunity, Health Sub Issue Area Addressed Clean Water, Financial Services, Living Conditions, Responsible Supply Chains, Sanitation, Water Management, Women's and Girls' Education Countries Served Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda Website http://water.org Twitter handle Water Facebook https://www.facebook.com/water Youtube http://youtube.com/water About the Organization A shared passion for ending the global water crisis brought Gary White and Matt Damon together to found Water.org and WaterEquity. Water.org is a global nonprofit organization working to bring water and sanitation to the world. The organization believes water is the way to break the cycle of poverty, to protect and save lives, and to make bright futures possible for everyone, everywhere. Water.org helps people get access to safe water and sanitation through affordable financing, such as small loans. Increasing financing for water and sanitation is imperative to making progress toward ending the global water crisis. With a focus on financing, Water.org established WaterEquity to harness the power of impact investing to deliver universal access to safe water and sanitation. WaterEquity invests in a portfolio of financial institutions and enterprises in emerging markets—enabling them to scale, meet increasing market demand, and deliver access to safe water and sanitation. Water.org and WaterEquity work together to build water and sanitation markets and ensure services are safe, accessible, and affordable for all. Impact As of January 2020, Water.org has mobilized over $2.2 billion in financing to empower 27.9 million people around the world to turn on a tap and safely use a toilet at home. With programs and people working in 13 countries, the organization is scaling and exploring new markets and solutions to help end the global water crisis. WaterEquity's funds have made 18 investments across three countries, reaching over 1 million people with safe water and sanitation. With over $60 million in assets under management and counting, WaterEquity continues to build markets between investors and high-growth enterprises serving the water and sanitation needs of people living in poverty. Path to Scale Put capital to work and remove the financial barriers to universal access to safe water and sanitation. Financing is key to reaching more people, faster, in ways that last. Social Entrepreneur Gary White is co-founder and CEO of Water.org. He holds three degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Over 20 years ago, Gary watched a little girl carrying contaminated water alongside a stream of open sewage back to her shack in Honduras. At that moment, Gary decided to dedicate his life to bringing safe drinking water to people living without it and started Water.org (then known as WaterPartners [i]) shortly thereafter. Gary knew a real system change in worldwide water access would have to be demand driven. Gary points to a moment in India that left no doubt in his mind what to do. A 65-year-old woman who earned $5 per week explained to Gary that each day she defecated in an open field and had just taken a $50 loan from a loan shark at a 110 percent interest rate to build herself a toilet. Gary knew she represented the vast numbers of people who could benefit from credit directed toward water and sanitation solutions. He set out to develop demand-driven water and sanitation programs, using microfinance to leverage financial resources from the bottom-up. [i] Water.org is the resulting organization of the July 2009 merger between WaterPartners, co- founded by White in 1990, and H2O Africa, co-founded by actor Matt Damon. Equilibrium Overview Current Equilibrium In the current equilibrium, 844 million people (1 in 9) lack access to safe drinking water while 2.3 billion people (1 in 3) lack access to a toilet. This inadequate access to safe water and sanitation services, coupled with poor hygiene practices, sickens thousands of people every day and leads to a cycle of poverty with diminished opportunities for thousands more. In rural areas, the burden of finding and retrieving water disproportionately falls on women and girls (76% in India), demanding valuable time that would otherwise be spent working or attending school. Poor farmers and wage earners are less productive due to illness, health systems are overburdened with preventable WASH issues, and national economies suffer. Established utilities assume the poor are unable to pay for water and sanitation (WASH) services. Governments and NGOs dedicate billions of dollars to provide and subsidize toilets and water connections for the poor only to see their efforts consistently hampered by corruption, false reporting and low utilization. Despite their on the ground presence, existing borrower relationships and lending expertise, microfinance institutions (MFIs) and other capital providers do not have the understanding or capacity to expand their portfolios into non-income generating WASH loans. New Equilibrium In the new equilibrium, the poor have access to affordable financing to fund household WASH improvements, thus empowering local ownership and participation. MFIs and other capital providers understand the impact and potential financial gains of WASH lending and actively expand their loan books to include WASH financing for the poor. The poor are not beneficiaries of assistance, but are instead empowered to play an active role in addressing their water and sanitation issues. The poor utilize the infrastructure they demand, lowering the need for government and civil society subsidies. Improved access to WASH infrastructure and services leads to healthier and more productive lives. Innovation Water.org believes in the power and autonomy of the people they serve. WaterCredit has been the foundational innovation at Water.org, which is the first to put microfinance tools to work in the water and sanitation sector. WaterCredit helps bring small loans to those who need access to affordable financing and expert resources to make household water and toilet solutions a reality. How it works: Identify a region where people need access to water and sanitation and that is ready for a microfinance solution.Partner with carefully selected institutions that provide affordable financing for water and sanitation to families in need.These partners establish water and sanitation loans in their portfolio of offerings. Water.org supports them by providing technical assistance, connections and resources.People in need use these small, affordable loans to put a tap or toilet in their homes and access local resources to do the work.Every repaid loan can be lent to another family in need of safe water or sanitation. In addition to their direct impact, Water.org has Collective impact – Water.org works with partners across sectors, including water and sanitation and financial services, and other international development organizations to expand access to affordable financing for water and sanitation. They provide technical assistance, share best practices, and collaborate with stakeholders so they can develop, implement and scale effective solutions.System impact – Water.org works with governments, sector institutions and other partners at a systems-level to influence policy and practice changes that increase the flow of capital for household water and sanitation solutions. Water.org launched WaterEquity in 2016, which became a separate organization in 2017, to explore the potential of additional funds targeting water and sanitation finance for the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). WaterEquity is the first-ever impact investment manager dedicated to ending the global water crisis, with an exclusive focus on raising and deploying capital to financial institutions and water and sanitation enterprises throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ambition for Change Everyone has access to safe water and a toilet. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org).
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