Billions of people lack access to safe, reliable, and affordable water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. This has profound consequences for their health and welfare, especially for children under the age of five. Conventional ways of addressing this challenge, which focus on installing hardware such as taps and toilets, often fail to deliver sustainable WASH services or to reach the people with the greatest need.
To address this challenge, the Osprey Foundation supports WASH initiatives that deliver effective, sustainable, and scalable services in underserved communities. We support organizations that work to strengthen the local systems for delivering sustained WASH services through integrated, multi-pronged programs. We also take risks on innovative models that are at too early a stage for many other funders but have the potential to create game-changing improvements in the way WASH services are delivered. Complementing these efforts, we advocate for change within the WASH sector through collaboration with other funders and by challenging the sector to adopt approaches with the potential for greater impact.
Our Partners in Action: Water for People
Water for People seeks to bring water, sanitation, and hygiene services to all people worldwide in a way that ensures those solutions will be sustainable. To do so, it partners with communities, governments, and businesses in nine countries—Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, India, Malawi, Rwanda, and Uganda—to implement the systems. The organization then provides training and tools to help stakeholders maintain the systems over time. Water for People’s model is called Everyone Forever—because its mission is to reach every person in a district and make sure that access lasts forever. To that end, it focuses on building piped infrastructure, establishing supply chains for needed parts, protecting water supplies, and training mechanics. In addition, it conducts policy advocacy and works to build the municipal infrastructure by creating water and sanitation utilities. Once a district reaches certain “Everyone” and “Forever” milestones, Water for People gradually exits that geography.
The Osprey Foundation is one of Water for People’s strongest supporters. Its general operating support has enabled the organization to help 3.3 million people access reliable water services since 2011. And, with targeted funding from Osprey, in 2018 the organization reached its first “Forever” milestone in San Pedro, Bolivia, indicating that the systems there are sustainable over the long term.
What We are Reading: Western States Opposed Tribes’ Access to the Colorado River 70 Years Ago. History Is Repeating Itself.
Many of the 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin still have been unable to access water to which they’re entitled. A recent ProPublica and High Country News investigation found that Arizona for years has taken a uniquely aggressive stance against tribes’ attempts to use their water.