Making reliable investments to alleviate water-borne sickness in children

<5 mins read. Approx. 500 words

A new financial product called Development Impact Bonds (DIBs) has been launched to improve Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in underserved communities. If successful, this may be an investment boost that the sector needs in order to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

THE CONTEXT

More than 2 billion people in the world consume water that has been contaminated, meaning that one in three people do not have access to clean potable water. Without that access, people drink water with fecal bacteria, parasites, and land-based contaminants that enter surface drinking water sources, including wells, springs, rivers, lakes, ponds and others. This leads to an estimated 485,000 diarrheal deaths each year (UNICEF 2019).

The latest report by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene presents the first estimates for the new UN’s SDG indicators in WASH and has some very important finding.

Though the number of drinking water-related deaths in the above report are staggering, it still fails to represent the hundreds of millions of individuals, who suffer from serious waterborne illnesses each year due to the lack of access to a safe and reliable drinking water source. Since waterborne diseases have the greatest effect on children, the secondary effect of waterborne illness directly impacts community development indicators, such as education and livelihood generation due to missed days at school by the children and missed days at work to care for a sick child.

MAKING WASH INVESTMENTS MORE CREDIBLE

The first Development Impact Bond (DIB) developed for WASH is known as the Cambodia Rural Sanitation DIB. This bond has been launched by International Development Enterprises (iDE), in partnership with the Stone Family Foundation and USAID, and has announced a $10 million bond in support of sanitation initiatives in Cambodia. WASH DIB is aimed at ending open defecation in 1600 villages in six provinces by 2023, and accelerating the Cambodian government’s efforts to achieve universal sanitation.

Attempting to solve entrenched global problems with new financial mechanisms, such as DIBs, is not something new. It has been done in areas such as climate change , and empowering womens’ health and livelihoods. However, the application of such a mechanism to address WASH management, so as to achieve the UN’s SDG 6, clean water and sanitation for all, is a novel concept.

COMBINING DATA AND FINANCIAL TOOLS TO ADDRESS WASH MANAGEMENT

Gravity Water’s system combined with Cambodia DIB can help achieve safe sanitation, which is critical to keeping drinking water free of contamination and preventing the spread of disease, improving overall health and reducing stunting among children.

Products and services offered by Engineering for Change’s Solutions Library combined with systems such as Gravity Water’s and innovative financial mechanisms, such as DIB, can a long way in providing WASH services to all in need, especially children across the world.

Disclaimer: This post “Making reliable investments to alleviate water-borne sickness in children” first appeared on Engineering for Change’s website under the heading “Financial Tools to Alleviate Water-Borne Disease in Children”. It has been modified for the ease of readers of this blog. For the original article, please visit EngineeringforChange’s website by clicking here. This is the third and last article in the series ‘Gravity Water’ for 2019. To read the first and second articles in the series, please click here and here.