Overcoming the day-to-day struggle for water

A recent series of articles in The New York Times highlights the everyday challenges of water access and sanitation in major cities all over India, and the significant consequences these challenges have on the lives of Indians. With over 700 million people lacking access to adequate water supply, and 2.1 million children under 5 dying from preventable water-borne disease, the toll is devastating. With both infrastructure and natural resources overstretched and misused, individuals take on a “me-first” approach, trying to get the water they need at any cost. This leads to accelerated degradation of pipes, which are illegally tapped, and water resources that are being drawn with little planning from depleted aquifers. Where in the midst of these governmental, social and market failures, is there cause for hope?

We see it in evidence that communities, local organizations and entrepreneurs can devise sustainable and equitable strategies to address the pressing needs that now affect almost every level of society. One Acumen Fund investee, Heritage Livelihood Services Provider, developed a model to bring water storage to peri-urban slums around Hyderabad so that women and children there could escape the fruitless cycle of waiting for water tankers. WaterHealth International, another member of the Water Portfolio, is providing safe and affordable drinking water to rural communities in India without relying on scarce groundwater resources. Technological innovators from India and abroad are looking to partner with local governments and NGOs to test decentralized approaches to tackling water quality and water access problems, and Acumen Fund is actively seeking ways to turn these bold experiments into scalable and sustainable models for reaching the vast and growing number of people who are ready for a change.