Publication: Waterlife: Improving Access to Safe Drinking Water in India
Loading...
Date
2017-04
ISSN
Published
2017-04
Editor(s)
Abstract
With 700 million people residing in rural India over a large and diverse topography, providing access to safe drinking water is a significant challenge. The government has tried, playing a key role in financing and implementing drinking water schemes. However, about 30 percent of urban and 90 percent of rural households still depend completely on untreated surface or groundwater. The health and economic burdens of poor drinking water are enormous. It is estimated that about 21 percent of communicable diseases in India are water-related. In response, Waterlife, a for-profit company based out of Hyderabad, has experimented with an innovative business model—building and operating stand-alone water purification plants in underserved areas of India that would otherwise have no access to safe drinking water. Waterlife partners with local governments to provide the location and money for construction of the plants. Customers pay a small fee to fill up their 20-liter water jars, and this fee is used to pay back the government expenditure and cover ongoing plant maintenance and operations. The Waterlife model builds strong community ownership due to a transparent operating system with responsive customer service; community awareness campaigns on the importance of safe drinking water; locations in convenient public settings; and the training of a local corps of villagers to manage plant operations and maintenance. Impact can be seen in a reduced incidence of waterborne diseases and related medical expenses and improved job opportunities and school attendance for local villages. The expectation is that if continued and expanded, the utilization of Waterlife plants will enhance long-term economic and health development outcomes for disadvantaged and disenfranchised populations in India.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Agapitova, Natalia; Navarrete Moreno, Cristina; Barkataky, Rahul. 2017. Waterlife: Improving Access to Safe Drinking Water in India. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27664 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication OpASHA(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-04)Tuberculosis (TB) afflicts 2.8 million citizens in India, representing more than 30 percent of the world’s total burden. To control TB, complete adherence to treatment is crucial—under the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Directly Observed Therapy Short-course (DOTS) strategy. In this strategy, patients are required to take up to 75 doses under supervision over six months at a treatment center or in the presence of an observer. However, the scarcity or inaccessibility of treatment centers and truthful observers in hard to-reach areas often results in high default rates. Missing a dose or interrupting treatment is extremely dangerous, since those who default can relapse, or much worse, develop the deadlier, drug-resistant strain of TB. A continuing social stigma for those who have TB is also linked to incomplete treatment and lack of follow-up. There is poor data collection as well. Since 2006, Operation ASHA (OpASHA) has helped deliver the Last-mile connection to TB treatment and prevention in India by leveraging existing government infrastructure to supplement the country’s own efforts. OpASHA receives free medicines, diagnostic facilities and physician services from the national TB control program. Through a partnership with Microsoft Research, OpASHA has pioneered a biometric technology called eCompliance for treatment. OpASHA serves 10 million people in nine states across India, in addition to 2.2 million people in Cambodia. OpASHA has expanded to Cambodia, and its model has already been replicated in Uganda, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic.Publication Educate Girls(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-04)In India, women and girls, especially in rural areas, are particularly affected by illiteracy. The social enterprise educate girls works to reform the existing school framework and create community ownership of government schools to improve Indian girls’ enrollment, retention, and academic performance. As of fiscal year 2017-18, educate girls operates in 10 districts in Rajasthan and 3 districts in Madhya Pradesh benefiting approximately 3.8 million beneficiaries. Educate girls creates community ownership of government schools by leveraging existing public, private, and community resources to empower the local communities. The educate girls model allows for sending one girl to school at United States dollar (USD) 5 per year. Its monitoring and evaluation system measures enrollment, attendance, and quality of learning for these girls, even at a large scale. The program’s impact is assessed through rigorous evaluation techniques, including quasi-experimental designs and randomized control trials. The educate girls model has the potential for far-reaching benefits - continuing to address gender inequality in education can bring about real transformation, such as improvements in health, income levels, and overall livelihoods in rural populations.Publication Emerging Social Enterprise Ecosystems is East and South African Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-05)Across Sub-Saharan Africa millions of people remain excluded from critical, life-enhancing services, such as access to water, energy, sanitation, education, and health care. As a result, approximately 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, while life expectancy and literacy are at their lowest rates globally. Moreover, inequality of access to these basic services remains a challenge, especially for marginalized groups, such as women and the rural and urban poor. In this context, Social Enterprises (SEs) have emerged as a new type of development actor with the potential to help solve the service delivery gap. SEs are privately owned organizations,,either for-profit, non-profit, or a hybrid of the two, that use business methods to advance their social objectives. The first part of the report presents an overview of the current landscape for SEs in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The second part introduces the SE ecosystem and provides a diagnosis of current ecosystems across the seven countries. The report highlights cross-country findings based on research at three levels: the country level, service sector level, and specific service level (Figure 2). Seventeen studies focus on health, water and sanitation, education, and energy sectors at the country level, and five studies focus on specific services, such as maternity care and HIV prevention at the country level. The report targets development practitioners involved in policy design and implementation who are interested in new ways to address service delivery challenges. These specific examples of challenges and opportunities for SEs in Africa can highlight ways to increase the sustainability and scale of current and future SE business models.Publication Dimagi(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-04)India suffers from a high maternal and infant mortality rate, especially in rural areas, where poor women do not receive effective care and one in every 22 infants die within one year of life. In 2010, Dimagi, in partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), IntraHealth International, Real Medicine Foundation, and Save the Children, deployed CommCare mobile technology to help Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) improve their care for pregnant women and their newborns at the last mile in rural India. CommCare uses audio, video, imagery, short message service (SMS) texting, data and tracking forms, multiple languages, and other features to standardize ASHAs’ service delivery, improve counseling techniques and patient coordination, and collect real-time data for performance monitoring. The multimedia aids enhance client engagement and assist low-literate ASHAs and their clients. Through a partnership with the Government of India and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a CommCare-based application is being scaled across eight Indian states to strengthen the monitoring of the service delivery of anganwadi center’s in the country. The CommCare mobile application is intended to replace the extensive paper registers anganwadi workers are required to maintain. The app is designed to improve the care anganwadi workers provide their communities, tracking distribution of immunizations and supplementary food, attendance of children at preschool, and the nutrition status of children up to age five.Publication Agastya(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-04)Many of India’s disadvantaged youth are apathetic about their education from the formal schooling system, resulting in high dropout rates. Lack of interest and perceived value of education often cause low retention and dismal learning outcomes, which can perpetuate poverty and contribute to the socio-economic divide. In India, however, creative learning is a privilege of the rich few. To remedy this situation, Agastya operates a hands-on science education program, equipping disadvantaged students of government schools in rural areas with tools and learning that foster confidence, creativity, teamwork, and leadership. Agastya’s learning methods take the form of activity - project and demo-based learning, peer-to-peer learning, and learning from nature. Agastya uses a variety of delivery channels: science center’s serve as a hub for activities in a region, teacher trainings, science fairs, and summer camps; mobile science labs and lab-in-a-box programs deliver education to students’ doorsteps and classrooms; government schoolteachers receive training in creative learning methods; and selected students obtain additional education on scientific concepts to become peer instructors.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Urban Transport in Yangon(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020)Yangon is the largest city and main economic powerhouse in Myanmar. The increased urbanization and economic activity in Yangon in the past decade may be potentially hampered by higher motorization and its negative impacts, particularly for the poor, including longer travel times to jobs and services, and increasing traffic-related injuries and fatalities and pollutant emissions. The report calls for urgent actions to seize the window of opportunity brought by a growing economy and put forward actionable, simple, and affordable strategies aiming to provide efficient, equitable, clean, and safe mobility for the population in two major cities in Myanmar. This overview note presents highlights of the report for Yangon. It aims to support policy discussions on how to improve the urban transport sector performance and match with adequate funding and financing options suited to the bold vision for Yangon.Publication Philippines Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)Climate change poses major risks for development in the Philippines. Climate shocks, whether in the form of extreme weather events or slow-onset trends, will hamper economic activities, damage infrastructure, and induce deep social disruptions. Adaptation to the risks of climate change, including both extreme events and slow-onset problems, is thus critical for the Philippines. Policy inaction would impose substantial economic and human costs, especially for the poor. Adaptation cannot eliminate the costs of climate change, but it can substantially reduce them. Many adaptation responses also contribute to mitigation; conversely, many mitigation measures generate local co-benefits, such as reduced air pollution. Although the Philippines is a relatively low emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG), it can contribute to global mitigation efforts through an energy transition, including a shift away from coal. The investment costs of such adaptation measures and an energy transition are substantial but not out of reach. The Philippines Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) comprehensively analyzes how climate change will affect the country's ability to meet its development goals and pursue green, resilient, and inclusive development. The CCDR helps identify opportunities for climate action by both the public and private sectors and prioritizes the most urgent development challenges impacted by climate change in the Philippines.Publication Energy Sector Decarbonization in Vietnam(Washington, DC, 2022-06)Vietnam has made remarkable economic progress over the past 30 years; however, growth was supported by increasing reliance on coal-based energy. The energy sector would continue the expansion of coal-based energy with the significant increase in the installed capacity of coal power plants under previous plans. Vietnam has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and gradually phasing out the use of coal for power generation. Selecting lower carbon pathways for the future growth of the energy sector requires the study of interdependencies of the power system through a robust analytical approach. The choice of decarbonization scenario should be based on a careful review of implications and opportunities at the sector level as well as more broadly at the level of the economy. Energy sector decarbonization would require the development of ‘just transition’ oriented policies and regulations to support the people, communities, and businesses. World Bank Group stands ready to provide comprehensive support for designing and implementing a low-carbon future for the energy sector.Publication Lao PDR Forest Note(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-05)Natural capital in Lao PDR is a major source of wealth for the country and becomes even more strategic in times of economic stress. While forest products directly benefit vulnerable rural communities, ecosystem services from forests support key economic sectors such as energy, agriculture, industry, and tourism. Forests and downstream industries also offer important job and livelihood opportunities in rural areas in Lao PDR that can be expanded. This country forest note provides an upstream analysis of the status of forests as well as investments and policies relevant to the forest sector in the Lao People’s Demographic Republic. The analysis looks at forests in a programmatic and cross-sectoral manner to strategically position the World Bank Group to support the country in delivering on forest-relevant interventions.Publication Managing Pesticides for Greener Growth in Lao PDR(World Bank, Vientiane, 2021-03-26)Sound pesticides management and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in particular are widely acknowledged as important mechanisms to mitigate pre- and post-harvest losses and to achieve sustainable agricultural intensification. The recent proliferation of agricultural concessions, contract farming arrangements, subsidies and other mechanisms in the country to stimulate production also mean a facilitated access to inputs that must be regulated. Preserving Lao PDR’s rich biodiversity is not only a conservation goal in itself but also contributes to food security, poverty reduction and development. Sound pesticides management contributes to agricultural competitiveness and trade. Trade in agricultural products, and in particular market access, is affected by the presence of pests in a traded consignment or the presence of excessive pesticide residues in food products that attract the application of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures by trading partners. The Lao PDR Government has made strides in controlling banned, unregistered and illegally imported pesticides in the last ten years.