LONDON — New approaches to delivering clean water to the world’s poor are desperately needed to reach the call for universal and sustainable water and sanitation by 2030 — but the challenge is hard to meet in a sector not known for innovation.
Nearly 850 million people around the world are still without access to a reliable, quality source of drinking water, without which development experts say fundamental improvements in other sectors such as health and education cannot be achieved.
Water supply has traditionally been the domain of engineers building large infrastructure projects in cities, and NGOs digging wells and installing hand pumps in rural areas. These efforts have been largely financed by government and development finance institutions who have tended to favor tried and tested, large-scale models, similar to the kinds of water utilities seen in developed nations.