Full Coverage

Committing to an entire region

We believe that genuine results are not achieved until every household, every school and every clinic has access to water and sanitation facilities in the districts where we work. Full coverage is the goal of every program we initiate. Too many programs stop short of full coverage—helping some but not others. There are many reasons for this, including a lack of long-term funding, the expiration of grants, and poor planning.

But often the ones that are not helped are the poorest and hardest to reach communities and families.

This is not good enough for Water For People. We commit to create solutions that achieve full coverage in the places we work. We commit to doing this in a reasonable amount of time so that we are not in these areas for decades, simply sustaining ourselves. And we make this commitment whether we have a long-term grant for the totality of this work or not. We find a way to get it done.

We know we’ll never have the money to build water systems for everyone in the world. But we can cover an entire region and prove the success of our model. We innovate: We focus on what it will take for all people in a region to have access to quality water and sanitation services, and we avoid the easy solutions that look good on the surface but which ultimately leave people who are hard to reach out of the solution. If we demonstrate full coverage in an area, we know that others will follow us in emulating these programs.

Further, total coverage in a region requires us to leverage the money that others bring to the table. Whether that money comes from government, community, other organizations, or the private sector, it goes directly toward the solution. And that makes every Water For People dollar go much, much further.

We are getting close in districts like Chinda, Honduras, and Cuchumuela, Bolivia. And the Rwandan Government and Water For People have just committed to long-lasting, full coverage in the district of Rulindo. Every person, today, tomorrow, in 10 years and beyond. Now that’s reason to celebrate. Learn more about the Rulindo Challenge.