Safe Water

Accelerating the coverage of reliable access to safe and affordable water services

Ensuring access to sustainable high-quality water services that meet communities’ true needs will require a new approach and outlook on implementation. The Foundation will make investments in three inter-related focus areas: 1) advancing proven and promising solutions and models, 2) strengthening water governance and in-country systems, and 3) building and disseminating credible and actionable evidence. These three approaches will be applied in an integrated way within the countries where we work in sub-Saharan Africa. By doing so, we seek to accelerate the coverage of reliable access to safe and affordable water for households, health facilities and schools in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Uganda.

News from the Field

3 things that make water complicated

April 2019
Agenda For Change Breakfast: Advancing Systems Approaches Through Collaboration And Partnership

October 2018
MWA Supports District-Wide Planning in Line with Global SDGs

September 2018

Grantee

Millennium Water Alliance

To increase access to safe water for an additional 300,000 people in rural Ethiopia, and to strengthen the capacity of government to manage existing water supply assets and deliver reliable safe water services to 3.2 million people in 23 districts.

View All Grantees

External Resources

We recommend visiting the following partners and external resources that are important to our work:

Project

WaterCredit puts microfinance to work in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.

By connecting financial institutions to communities in developing countries in need of clean water and toilets, small loans are then made to individuals and households. As loans are repaid, they can be redeployed to additional people in need of safe water, reducing the need for subsidies, which can then be freed up to help those who need it most.
Project

Overview of IRC's Triple-S Ghana project

Triple-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) is a six-year, multi-country learning initiative to improve water supply to the rural poor. Triple-S Ghana in collaboration with the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), the governmental agency responsible for rural water and related sanitation, and the host institution for Triple-S in Ghana, have collaborated on a number of studies on issues of interest to the sector.
Project

WASHfunders.org

WASHfunders.org is a unique source of data and information for donors, policymakers, and other stakeholders interested in water, sanitation, and hygiene. The site was created by our partner, the Foundation Center, as a one-stop-shop for funding and needs-related data and information.

What We’re Learning View All Reports ›

Strategy Document

2017 - 2021 Safe Water Strategic Initiative Strategy Overview Document

August 2017

The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector has made much progress over the past two decades establishing and improving access to safe water services. However, a need persists to reduce widespread ineffeciencies and duplication of efforts, and measure what matters most to vulnerable communities. The adoption of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) gives the WASH sector a new global ambition to strive for—pushing for bigger and better water services and establishing a permanent status quo.
Strategy Document

2017 - 2021 Safe Water Strategic Initiative Strategy

October 2016

The adoption of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) gives the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector a new global ambition to strive for – pushing for bigger and better services. The Foundation has embraced this bold challenge with the design and release of its 2017-2021 grantmaking strategy.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

Assessment of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s Strategy for Sustainable Safe Water Access and Strategic Objectives

January 2016

The Water Institute (WI) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was requested to assess the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s Sustainable Access to Safe Water Strategy and its Strategic Objectives (SOs).