Giving Compass' Take:

• Vedika Bhandarkar at Skoll discusses how small loans have helped increase water security worldwide, specifically in India, where borrowers have doubled their household income.

• Nearly one-quarter of borrowers attributed increased income to extra time for women, and one in five attributed increased income due to a boost in overall productivity. How much does gender equality play a role? 

• To learn more about nature-based solutions to global water crises, click here.

Globally, 844 million people lack even a basic drinking water service, and 2.3 billion people lack access to hygienic sanitation. The clear majority of these people live below the poverty line, lack access to affordable financing, and cannot build a toilet or a piped water connection without financial support. These simple facilities can cost a poor household more than its entire monthly income.

When aggregated, the requirement is staggering. As estimated by UNICEF/World Bank, to ensure universal access to safely managed WASH (Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene) services by 2030 we need around $114 billion per year while the historical level of annual funding is $16 billion. Water.org’s mission is to leverage social and commercial capital in the form of micro-loans for water and sanitation, to reduce this financing gap. Nanda’s story above demonstrates our belief that the poor are agents of change, and are willing to finance their own toilet or water connection if they can spread the cost over time by saving or borrowing. To date, we have reached nearly ten million people through water and sanitation lending, globally.

This success was earned through battling two prevalent misconceptions in the market through our work in India.

Read the full article about water micro-lending by Vedika Bhandarkar at Skoll.