Microcredit
Microfinance: Cambridge University team wins global prize for innovative water financing solution
President Bill Clinton announced Cambridge University as the global winner of the 2nd Annual Hult Global Case Challenge, which focused on identifying solutions to the global water crisis. The Cambridge team was selected by a panel of judges from an international competition of 150 teams from around the world. Hult International Business School provided the […]
Brisbane WASH Conference 2011 presentations on financial sustainability
Some 224 conference delegates from over 100 organisations in 40 countries came to Brisbane, Australia for the WASH Conference 2011. Below is a selection of the presentations on financial sustainability – powerpoints + audio files – given on 16-17 May. Most of the presentations were about Asia, the focus area of conference co-organiser/sponsor AusAid. There […]
Microfinance for water and sanitation: lofty dream or wave of the future?
Katya Jenkins reviews “the latest craze in the creative use of microfinance” – the use of microcredit for the provision of clean water and sanitation – in Microfinance Focus. After examining a number of challenges facing microfinance for water and sanitation, she presents WaterCredit, an initiative of Water.org, as an example of a feasible model […]
Water.org launches WaterCredit.org
The non-profit Water.org, co-founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, has launched WaterCredit.org, an online resource on microfinance in the water and sanitation sector. The new site provides information on the WaterCredit Initiative, which Water.org started in 2003 and now operates in India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Uganda. The web site has a list of links to […]
India, Tamil Nadu: micro-credit helps women’s self-help groups build toilets
An Indian NGO that provides housing and toilets for women’s groups was a finalist in the 2010 World Habitat Awards. Established in 1979, the Integrated Village Development Project (IVDP) mobilises poor women to form self-help saving groups (SHG). Some 6,700 groups have been established do far, each of which is made up of 12 to […]
Microfinance: interest free loans for water filters for the poor in India
Village Financial Services Pvt Ltd., a Kolkata-based microfinance company, has signed an MoU with Hindustan Unilever Ltd to promote use of safe drinking water among the poor. The collaboration will enable poor households to purchase HUL’s Pureit water purifiers through the VFS network. The targeted 250,000 beneficiaries will be offered loans at zero rate of […]
Water microfinance: the new door to wealth in the microfinance community
What do Matt Damon and Bill Clinton have in common? Founders of the non-profit organization Water.org, Damon and Clinton have fought to provide clean water for people all over the world. But they’ll also be the first to admit that grants and charity offerings alone provide insufficient financial capital for solving their identified challenges. That’s […]
Bangladesh: microfinance agencies enable entrepreneurs to provide more sanitation technology options
Over the last five years in Bangladesh, more than 90 million people have moved away from open defecation. While 88 percent of the population now have access to, and are using latrines, ensuring the quality and sustainability of these latrines is crucial. Without ready access to micro-credit and in the absence of well marketed technology […]
WaterCredit web site
This is the web site of the WaterCredit Initiative, which was set up by WaterPartners International in 2003 to provide microfinance for water and sanitation projects. As of 2009, WaterPartners’ WaterCredit portfolio has included work in Kenya, Bangladesh and India, with nearly US$ 1.6 million in WaterCredit loans disbursed to end borrowers. The content of […]
Sierra Leone: youth group gets microcredit to run public shower
Youth cooperative, the Water Sie Boys, runs a public shower for slum-dwellers in Kroo bay slum, in the centre of the capital Freetown, home to 13,000 people. Water Sie Boys received US$9,000 to set up the community shower from the government Youth Employment Secretariat (YES) . Set up in 2008, YES, supported by the UN Development […]
