We provide growth capital and advice to social entrepreneurs implementing market-based solutions at the base of the pyramid.
Our Areas of Focus
Clean water, sanitation and hygiene are a basic human right and the foundation of health and human dignity. We are investing in self-sustaining, integrated approaches in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #6 - Clean Water and Sanitation for All.
Water
844 million people lack even a basic drinking-water service, including 159 million people who are dependent on surface water.
Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with feces.
Contaminated water can transmit diseases such diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio. Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 502,000 diarrheal deaths each year.
Sanitation
2.3 billion people still do not have basic sanitation facilities such as toilets or latrines.
Of these, 892 million still defecate in the open, for example in street gutters, behind bushes or into open bodies of water
Poor sanitation is linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the conditions and practices that help maintain health and prevent spread of disease including handwashing, menstrual hygiene management and food hygiene.
Each day, nearly 1,000 children die due to preventable water and sanitation-related diarrheal disease.
According to UNESCO, one in 10 girls misses school during menstruation.
