What we fund

We fund market-based water solutions that bring safe, affordable water to taps in the home. Our partners range from water service providers on the ground to the technical and financial organisations that help them scale and stay viable for the long term.

Water Service Providers (WSPs) 
We invest in entrepreneurial private operators, and support community-based systems and utilities, to demonstrate how professional, reliable and high-quality services can operate in challenging markets and achieve financial sustainability.

Technical Service Providers (TSPs)
Market-based water solutions rely not only on local operators in the field but also on the technical expertise that helps them scale and enhances their performance. That’s why we support TSPs to offer critical tools, services and software to strengthen the delivery and management of rural water supply. This also includes support for organisations and partners who design, build and run programmes that support innovation, performance improvement and access to finance across the piped water sector.

Examples include:

• Digital meter reading and billing platforms.
• Customer service and payment systems.
• Remote monitoring and network diagnostics.
• Operational and business model consulting.
• Reduction in “non-revenue water” (NRW).

We work with TSPs either directly or through our support to WSPs who contract their services. Our focus is on approaches that are scalable, financially viable and capable of strengthening the overall water service ecosystem.

Partners and Programmes
We collaborate with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), commercial banks and global agencies, including the World Bank, to scale market-based water models. These partnerships unlock the large-scale finance needed to grow reliable water services across whole regions.

Our strategic initiatives also provide many WSPs with access to finance, efficiency improvements and enhanced creditworthiness including loan facilities and technical support.

First pilot scheme for household connections in Ghana
We have funded Safe Water Network (SWN) for many years, supporting the development of their water kiosks, which require households to fetch water in jerry cans. In 2020 we persuaded SWN to pilot a piped water network with metered household connections in the village of Nobewam.

This pilot proved to be a great success; as confirmed in the TV news item above. It is not a panacea, but it showed that low-income households are prepared to pay for a good service and that a household connection model can be far more operationally sustainable than water kiosks.

Following the success of this pilot, SWN has shifted its focus to household connections over kiosks.

Our case studies show our strategy in action