Financing for WASH entrepreneurs

long-term impact?

At any given time, an estimated one in four rural water points in Africa is out of service, partly because there is little commercial incentive for repairs and maintenance. We want to change that.

Long-term access to safe drinking water and sanitation requires more than infrastructure alone. Water points, pipelines and pumps also need to be professionally managed, maintained and repaired for years to come.

WASH financing gap

In the countries where we work, we see many water entrepreneurs with experience, strong ideas, local knowledge and the ambition to build sustainable water services. These entrepreneurs have enormous potential to reach large numbers of people and play an important role in achieving the SDG targets for water and sanitation.

The capital to develop and scale these ideas is often missing. That’s why we allocate 10% of our project budget to financing promising water enterprises

By providing funding to water entrepreneurs, we aim to give them the boost they need to grow and eventually continue independently. In this way, we can create a ripple effect that helps accelerate access to clean drinking water on a much larger scale.

— Frank van der Tang, co-founder Made Blue Foundation

Why invest rather than simply donate?

Rather than simply donating funds, we invest or provide loans wherever possible. Once the funding is repaid, we can put the same money to work again, allowing every euro to create impact more than once.

Invest → grow → repay → reinvest

This creates a cycle in which successful water enterprises can continue to grow and reach more and more people.

Entrepreneurship as a driver for clean drinking water

We look for enterprises with a strong business model that can help provide lasting access to clean drinking water, for example, through local water networks, water kiosks or innovative technoloy.

Together with experts and partners, we identify promising WASH entrepreneurs and support them in developing their businesses. We provide the funding they need to scale their solutions and build a path towards long-term, independent growth.

How do water enterprises count towards our impact?

The litres we promise our ambassadors are fully delivered through our regular water projects. Any impact generated by water enterprises comes on top of this and is only counted once it has actually been achieved.