Safe water
Treatment, storage, and handling at point of use.
Focus — Health & Community Well-Being — Water and sanitation
WATER AND SANITATION
IDEAS WE SUPPORT.
World Seed Fund supports people whose ideas improve safe water and sanitation in daily use for the households and schools using the facilities.
Why this area
WATER AND SANITATION
IN CONTEXT.
Sanitation fails on maintenance and dignity more often than on engineering. Ideas qualify when the facility, its emptying, and its acceptability are all planned.
Scope of the area
WHAT THIS AREA
INCLUDES.
Illustrations of scope, not a fixed list. If your idea belongs here but is not described below, introduce it anyway.
Sanitation
Toilets suited to density, water availability, and cost.
Faecal sludge
Emptying, transport, and treatment.
Hygiene
Handwashing and practice that actually holds.
Criteria to qualify
WHAT A WATER AND SANITATION
IDEA MUST SHOW.
All five criteria apply. An idea does not need to be complete or proven — it needs to be specific enough that we can judge it, and grounded enough that a next step is possible.
A defined problem, in a defined place
We need to understand exactly who is affected, where, and how they cope today. General statements about a global challenge are not enough to qualify.
- Names the place, community, or system where safe water and sanitation in daily use fall short.
- States the situation today in plain terms — facilities in working use, water quality, or reported illness.
- Explains what the households and schools using the facilities do now, and what it costs them.
Human insight behind the idea
The idea should come from knowledge of the situation — technical, scientific, operational, cultural, or lived — rather than from an assumption about it.
- Draws on direct knowledge of safe water and sanitation in daily use in that place.
- Accounts for why earlier latrine construction and hygiene campaigns did not hold here.
- Was shaped with the households and schools using the facilities, not only for them.
A credible next step
There must be a specific thing that can be attempted next, at a scale that can be observed honestly, with a stated way of judging whether it worked.
- A defined pilot with a stated size — households, facilities, or a settlement served.
- A stated measure of success — facilities in working use, water quality, or reported illness.
- A timeframe within which the result can be judged honestly.
Value for people and place
The benefit should be meaningful to the community or system the idea serves, and describable in terms they would recognise.
- Improves health, dignity, and time for the households and schools using the facilities.
- The benefit is described in words the community itself would use.
- Does not shift cost, risk, or harm onto neighbouring people or systems.
A path to keep working
Ideas qualify when someone can plausibly own, operate, fund, and repair the result after the first phase of support ends.
- A named utility, sanitation enterprise, or community committee able to carry the work after the first phase.
- Running costs, materials, and skills obtainable near the work.
- Ownership, permission, or agreement that lets the work continue.
Evidence & boundaries
WHAT HELPS,
AND WHAT DOES NOT.
Evidence can be modest. A careful account of a small trial is worth more than a projection.
Evidence we look for
- Any observation, record, or measurement of safe water and sanitation in daily use in that place.
- Costs, materials, or time recorded from a small trial, however modest.
- Notes, letters, or agreements from the households and schools using the facilities or the utility, sanitation enterprise, or community committee.
Usually outside this area
- Broad proposals about water and sanitation with no named place and no named people.
- Equipment or funding requests with no operator and no running cost.
- Work that transfers cost, risk, or harm to neighbouring people or systems.
Submit an idea
INTRODUCE YOUR
WATER AND SANITATION IDEA.
There is no application window and no required format. Answer these four questions in your own words and we will read them.
Who is affected, where, and how do they manage today?
What do you know about safe water and sanitation in daily use that others working on it may not?
What could you attempt next, and how would you judge whether it worked?
Who continues the work afterwards, and what keeps it running?
Human potential is everywhere. Opportunity should be too.