Lens

Kelly Latham, Senior Global Advisor for Climate and Water Resources, digs into climate resilience, why it matters, and what we can do communities most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

In early 2020, despite the fact that the pandemic was taking hold around the world, a very different, much more hopeful global conversation was taking place between Netherlands-based IRC and Water For People: The work we do together is successful. How can we make our collaborations more strategic and create more impact?

Water For People’s Shitovation Awards were designed to address the disconnect between the global sanitation crisis and desperately needed innovation. Here are the 2023 grant projects.

Here’s why we chose the five items offered by Water For People in the Light the World Giving Machines this year.

A major component of Water For People’s approach to ensuring sustainable sanitation is supporting locally-led sanitation businesses. These businesses are developed by entrepreneurs to fill a gap in the market, providing families with safe, affordable, and uninterrupted sanitation services because providers are local, not miles away.

Because Water For People’s plan is to eventually exit the countries we’re working within, partnering with governments and strengthening national systems is a necessary requirement for our work.

The need for water and sanitation improvements is not limited to middle- and low-income countries, and the inequality has persisted in North America on a devastating scale.