Market-based solutions for Water to the Home

This perpetuates poverty through poor health, missed education and lost productivity. The impact falls heaviest on women and girls, who spend hours each day collecting water, limiting access to education and economic opportunities.

A different approach is needed
Traditional project-led approaches bring short-term relief but fail to deliver long-term reliability, scale or sustainability. Transformational change depends on models that combine operational efficiency with sustainable funding to bring safe, affordable water into every home.

We focus on piped water systems that deliver safe, affordable water directly into people’s homes. Our work spans sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia and Central America.

Through a mix of grants, risk capital and impact investments, we partner with innovative water providers to scale financially sustainable services.

We are committed to supporting financially sustainable, customer-paid services rather than charity-led models. We also address the underlying barriers and focus on solutions to succeed at scale.

Why financially viable market-based approaches?
Traditional project-led approaches deliver short-term impact but often struggle to remain operational. We back models and programmes that help water service providers cover their costs through household payments and other sustainable revenue streams.

This approach helps:

• Attract private investment to strengthen operations and enable scale.
• Ensure systems are maintained and continue serving communities year after year.
• Create local jobs and build technical capacity.

By supporting financially viable providers we bridge the gap between philanthropy and commercial finance, building a stronger, more resilient water sector.

How we invest
As a philanthropic foundation, we provide patient, risk-tolerant capital to help our partners overcome systemic barriers such as weak governance, limited financing and technical constraints.

• We provide catalytic capital and guarantees.
• We bridge water service providers to commercial finance.
• We fund technical assistance.

Our support focuses on four key areas:

1. Direct investments: Funding high-potential enterprises delivering household connections.
2. Performance programmes: Helping water service providers to improve their efficiency, expand their networks and strengthen creditworthiness.
3. Access to finance: Unlocking affordable, scalable capital for water service providers to grow.
4. Strategic initiatives: Finding innovative ways to finance operators, for example through pay-as-you-go solar in Kenya, or through our revenue financing facility in Cambodia.

Our focus on Water to the Home has provided valuable insights and has led to two specific initiatives — cutting costs through solar power and unlocking new capital through innovative finance. These initiatives have the potential to help many more households gain access to reliable, safe, affordable water at home.

Accelerating solar adoption for water service providers
Energy is one of the biggest costs for water service providers, accounting for up to 70% of total operating expenses. Most rely on grid electricity, which is expensive and unreliable, or on diesel which is even more so.

Solar is well-suited to the energy demands of water service providers. The technology is established and costs have fallen sharply, making it a reliable, low-cost alternative. The barrier is not technology, it is the upfront cost and effort of procurement which puts it out of reach for most small operators.

Through our Solarisation initiative we work with solar companies and project developers to provide financing for pay-as-you-go solar to make adoption much cheaper and easier. We do this through co-financing and first-loss guarantees that give private sector partners the confidence to offer PAYG solar to operators who they would not otherwise reach. Energy savings cover the cost of adoption, and once this is paid off within three to four years, operators benefit from reliable energy and much cheaper operating costs.

Our pilot programmes in Kenya are testing how targeted financing and private sector partnerships can accelerate solar adoption across the water sector, with the potential to scale this model in sub-Saharan Africa.

Water Revenue Financing Facility (WRFF): unlocking private capital for rural water services
Expanding access to safe water requires more than grants alone. Small rural operators are crucial for piped water services but struggle to access finance from banks and investors. The perceived risk and effort to lend to them remains high as investors lack experience and the operators’ financial track record is limited.

Rather than providing grants, the Water Revenue Financing Facility offers flexible loans with repayments tied directly to operator cashflows. We also provide technical support to improve performance and de-risk our investments. Our local partner (AquaBridge) helps operators develop business plans, review system designs, monitor construction and track progress.

By aggregating smaller investments into individual operators, WRFF has created a platform that is attracting further investment - $8m to date – to scale up from Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, Ceniarth and Capshift. This shows how, with the right structure, private capital can be mobilised for rural piped water services.

Since 2018 we have provided loans of over $16 million to 35 operators, funding over 100,000 connections and bringing piped water to more than 500,000 customers. We plan to use our insights to support the growth of piped networks in other countries.

The Solution: Revenue linked repayments

Our work in Cambodia has demonstrated the effectiveness of this programme; tying loan repayments directly to revenues and providing technical and business support to strengthen operator creditworthiness. Our plan is to use the insights from WRFF to support the growth of piped networks in other countries.

Why these initiatives matter
Together, Solarisation and WRFF address two of the biggest barriers to expanding piped water services: the cost of running water systems and the availability of finance to grow them. By showing that water service providers can operate efficiently and attract private investment, we aim to develop models that are financially viable, socially impactful and replicable across low- and middle-income countries.

Since 2018 we have provided loans of over $16 million to 35 operators which has helped to fund over 100,000 connections bringing Water to the Home of over 500,000 customers.

Our case studies show our strategy in action