2009: Network Expansion and Water and Sanitation Project Progress

Projects '09MEMBERSHIP UPDATE
2009 saw Peer Water Exchange (PWX) membership expand to 59 groups in 21 countries.  This added tremendous experience and knowledge to the network.  Our strength is the experience, creativity and passion for progress of our members. 

We welcomed the following new members in 2009 and are grateful for what they already have contributed:

Agua Para la Vida (APLV) • Nicaragua
Daemen College • United States
Earth Voyage • United States
Global Water • United States
Lifewater International • United States
Pacific Environment • United States
Pacific Institute • United States
Pure Water for the World • United States, Haiti and Honduras
Team Blue • United States
ESTAMOS    Mozambique
African Indigenous Women's Organization Kenya
Dept. of Environment and Water Management, A.N. College • India
Ekoventure • India
Humana People to People India • India
Melghat Mitra • India
Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Allied Trusts • India

 

PROJECT UPDATES

Working with our expanding network, we have reached over 650 communities now. Here are some highlights that illustrate the wide variety of challenges that make up the global safe drinking water crisis, as well as the wide scope of creative solutions our members have to attack it:


Global Women’s Water Initiative

GWWI (also known as African Women and Water) – an initiative coordinated by international organizations A Single Drop, Crabgrass, and Women’s Earth Alliance – equips local African women leaders with technology training, business skills, networking support, and seed funding to launch income-generating water service projects across Africa. In January 2009, GWWI chose the Peer Water Exchange to support project proposal development and manage the project reporting of 15 African women’s groups implementing customized water and sanitation solutions for their communities in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.
India

• A community led gravity fed water system supporting nearly 1,000 people with long-standing partner Gram Vikas. 
• Four village water well systems led by core partner WOTR supporting nearly 3,000 people. 
• Arsenic-free water projects in West Bengal with partner Project Well supporting nearly 1,500 people. 
• Rope pump systems in schools and villages by partners Humana and Ekoventure for 600 school children and 1300 adults.
Guatemala

A comprehensive school hygiene program and second phase of a water system program with new partner Agua Para La Salud bringing safe drinking water to nearly 2,000 children and their families.
Honduras

Household filters providing safe drinking water to nearly 400 people with new partner Pure Water For The World.
Haiti

School filters providing safe drinking water to 400 students with Pure Water For The World.
Nicaragua

Programs with partner El Porvenir to bring comprehensive water and sanitation or private latrines to over 2,000 people in remote areas.  Additional new partnership with Agua Para La Vida to build gravity fed water systems for nearly 3,000 people.
Kenya

Working with new partner Life Water to bring sustainable safe drinking water systems to nearly 2,000 school children.
Madagascar

Enabling the provision of water and sanitation to nearly 9,000 people through our partnership with Protos.
Sierra Leone

Providing a village with a fully operational well as well as training in repairing the hand pump.
Tanzania

Supporting partner PADI in bringing safe drinking water to nearly 1,000 school children.
Philippines

A project with long-standing member A Single Drop to bring safe drinking water to 360 people in Philippines through a self- managed fee-based water service project that ensures community ownership and self-reliance.

 

SYSTEM EXPANSION

2009 was a step change year for our system capabilities.  Based on feedback from our members, we have enhanced our network in a number of ways that have set it up for rapid growth.

  1. Open Funder Access.  We opened up our network to all funders, not just Blue Planet Run, in 2009, so that all interested groups could support the strong, peer-reviewed projects on the network. Funders can use the network as an efficient marketplace through which to proactively identify and manage high potential, peer-approved projects that align with their strategy, while reducing internal program staff time and expense. Funders also can use the network as one more channel through which to identify and fund worthy projects while gaining access to project learning from many other groups. The true benefit is that increased funding can flow cost-effectively to worthy projects, speeding us to our collective goal of eliminating the safe drinking water crisis.

  2. Total Project Management.  Collecting and managing project updates from the field can be a challenge for the most capable NGO.  Further effort also must be spent on consolidating that information and providing it to their many financial supporters. This takes precious time and resource that could be better spent in the field.  In response to member request, we opened up our network in 2009 so that members could put all of their projects on the network, not just those funded by Blue Planet Run or other members. Our members can have their field offices update project status periodically onto our network. Headquarters can then consolidate the information and send consistent, robust progress reports to their financial supporters. This saves time and money for the member, while greatly adding to the amount of water and sanitation project data and learning available for all interested parties to access.  We are working with two members on rolling out this program. Already, it has increased the total dollar amount of projects under management on our network from $1.4 million to over $9 million. We take this responsibility seriously and see this as a high growth opportunity in 2010 and beyond.

  3. Systems Improvements:  We have built many new features and enhanced network performance to help our community. By revamping our network map, we have greatly improved performance. We also have highlighted all peer-approved applications requiring funding to improve a project's opportunities for funding. We have improved the Help function, as well as summary information, to make it easier for our members to get the information they require quickly.

  4. Corporate Support:  We recently received a grant from Cisco to expand our monitoring and reporting capabilities.  We will work with our members to build out our abilities to capture the wide-ranging positive impacts of safe drinking water on a community, e.g. education, health, women’s community position, overall economic development.  We are grateful for Cisco’s support and we are eager to demonstrate its value in 2010.

 

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