Inclusive innovation and service delivery
Your clients, your employees and other entrepreneurs are potential partners. They have expertise, resources and know their community and its needs. Involving them in your company’s decisions and activities can benefit them and improve your business. Work together!
Including low-income groups into water and sanitation value chains as producers, employees and entrepreneurs can create socioeconomic benefits for those living in poverty and provide you with market expertise (that is usually lacking around BoP markets) or innovative ideas to serve BoP markets. If you have the ambition to improve services at the BoP, you are well-advised to identify and realize opportunities to engage BoP customers and target groups in your endeavor.
Make use of materials that are available to you. Many micro-entrepreneurs deliver water using wheelbarrows and trucks. Water and sanitation kiosks can improve community cooperation and collect information on what people need. Members of the community can manually operate and maintain their water and sanitation systems.
Browse the factsheets to explore these and other ideas.
- Hardware
- Software
Labour intensive technologies and solutions
Manual Pumping
Hand pumps are water-lifting devices that can be operated manually to withdraw water from surface water sources, groundwater sources and reservoirs,…
Human-powered Emptying and Transport
Human-powered emptying and transport refers to the different ways in which people can manually empty and/or transport sludge and solid products…
Human-Powered Distribution
Where there is no or not sufficient piped supply of freshwater and drinking water, nor any motorised vehicles to distribute it, water distribution…
Operation and Maintenance
Generally, water and sanitation projects experience their most serious problems with operation and maintenance and with cost recovery aspects.…
Manual Irrigation
Manual irrigation systems are very simple, but effective methods for making water available to crops. Manual irrigation systems are easy to handle…
Identifying and realizing opportunities for inclusive business operations
Developing Human Resources (WS)
The development of human resources is at the core of sustainable development. People and communities that are empowered with the necessary knowledge…
Empowering Young People as Promoters (WS)
Empowering young people as promoters in the field of water and sanitation is a way of assuring that a project or programme has a greater effect and…
Heat Recovery from Sludge
Wastewater treatment processes produce sewage sludge,which has to be discharged after an appropriate treatment. Nowadays, there are several new…
Water Vendors
Water vendors are common in many parts of the world where water scarcity or lack of infrastructure limit access to drinking water, particularly in…
Partners & Network
Companies can enter into partnerships with different types of organisations and with varying intensity. Possible benefits from partnerships can be…
After-sales
After-sales processes follow-up on customer deals, warranty issues and bring back customer feedback in order to improve product and services towards…
Distribution process: retailers or mobile sales force
Safe water enterprises have a multitude of options to deliver products and services. Important is to thoroughly reflect how the delivery shall look…
Monitoring and evaluation (safe water business)
“What gets measured gets done” (Drucker, 1954)Monitoring is the routine to collect data and information on activities and operations (e.g. from…
Microfinance for safe water businesses
Microfinance also known as microcredits allows businesses, individuals or communities to purchase goods, services, or equipment without paying for it…