When Mountain Safety Research, an outdoor equipment manufacturer, donated gear following the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, the team started to ask whether some of its products might be adapted to meet the needs of remote villages. A deep partnership with PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit focused on global health innovation, evolved over time and eventually led MSR to launch a global health division last May.
The launch of MSR Global Health coincided with the release of its debut product, a chlorine device now being piloted in Kenya and Mali.
The groundwork was laid back in 2008 when PATH, which was focusing on developing water treatment tools for households that could afford them was looking for a partner to work on providing safe water at the community level for people living on one or two dollars a day. When PATH saw that Cascade Designs, MSR’s parent company, was engineering water treatment products for military and outdoor recreation use, it decided to start a conversation. As those talks continued, PATH encouraged MSR to identify ways the purification system it had developed with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency might work for people living on less than $5 a day.
About the author
Catherine Cheneycatherinecheney
Catherine Cheney is the Senior Editor for Special Coverage at Devex. She leads the editorial vision of Devex’s news events and editorial coverage of key moments on the global development calendar. Catherine joined Devex as a reporter, focusing on technology and innovation in making progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to joining Devex, Catherine earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University, and worked as a web producer for POLITICO, a reporter for World Politics Review, and special projects editor at NationSwell. She has reported domestically and internationally for outlets including The Atlantic and the Washington Post. Catherine also works for the Solutions Journalism Network, a non profit organization that supports journalists and news organizations to report on responses to problems.
