VIRTUAL EVENT | WASH Within Reach? 50 Years and Billions Spent

Dear John,

Join a special session hosted by Ambassador Mark Green, former USAID Administrator and President, Director, & CEO of the Wilson Center, for 50 Years and Billions Spent, featuring groundbreaking reporting about one of the most stubborn challenges in human history – universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

In 2020, many of the sector's leaders worried that the Covid-19 pandemic would sidetrack investment and slow progress. While the signs of a potential catastrophe were apparent, the actual effects of the pandemic in delivering water and sanitation to people who need it were not as dire as anticipated.

WASH Within Reach, a project by the Wilson Center and Circle of Blue, investigates WASH services, financing, and resiliency over the last 50 years. In interviews with dozens of authorities on five continents, and months of research, the Wilson Center and Circle of Blue unravel the complexity of a global sector that now spends over $20 billion a year and is on its way to achieving one of the great breakthroughs in human well-being.

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Produced through a collaboration between Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center, with support from the Hilton Foundation.

Fenosa, like many who live in the Amoron 'Akona neighborhood, works by supplying dozens of households and businesses with well water. Location: Amoron 'Akona, Antananarivo, Madagascar. Photo © Tsilavo Rapiera – www.tsilavorapiera.com / www.arikamedia.com

Pandemic Brings WASH To Rare Inflection Point

Circle of Blue reports that the WASH world is at a rare inflection point. Pursuing WASH outcomes in the 20th century essentially meant that outside funders spent a fortune on water supply and sanitation equipment in developing regions. Though progress was made, a lot of pumps, pipes and toilets failed.

Frustrated by the intractable impediments—many of which were of their own making—funders and practitioners have spent much of the last decade tossing aside those clumsy approaches and have replaced them with disciplined business strategies and systems management that stress earned revenue streams, data collection and analysis, and measurable performance.

A child in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar refugee camp washes her hands in a newly installed wash station as a precaution for Covid-19. Photo © United Nations Development Programme.

Innovation in Financing Brightens WASH Galaxy

People devoted to financing water, sanitation and hygiene in developing nations worried for much of 2020. Utility customers stopped paying their water bills. Funders altered their priorities. Heads of state turned their attention to other virus-related emergencies.

Even as the official numbers seemed to point to a potential catastrophe, the actual effects of the pandemic on delivering water and sanitation to people who needed it were not nearly as dire.

A girl fills water jugs at a Afridev pump in Bangladesh Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp. Photo © Jennifer Möller-Gulland.

Universal WASH Gains Traction Even as Hand Pumps Lose Ground

Well over 1 billion people have gained access to clean water since India Mark II and Afridev hand water pumps went into widespread operation in the 1980s. That's success. But they are ticklish to manage. According to various studies, between 25 percent to 40 percent of the installed pumps no longer work due to weak community maintenance programs, corrosion, failed parts, and poor well construction.

Because of that, the Mark II and Afridev pumps are stirring another dispute: Could the "death of the hand pump," as the Dutch think tank IRC suggests, be at hand?

See Circle of Blue's full reporting on WASH around the world, including more stories and interactive dashboards, at circleofblue.org/wash.

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