Mission possible

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 emphasises the need for access to clean drinking water. Unfortunately, across the world, one in three people does not have access to safe drinking water; this is especially prominent in emerging economies. 1 Research shows that by 2025, 1.8 billion people would be living in countries or regions with absolute drinking water scarcity. 2 For decades, both government bodies and non-government agencies in the development sector have been searching for and implementing solutions to resolve the water crisis particularly in rural areas. Such efforts often fail not due to lack of funding, but due to poor maintenance, contamination, or water source depletion in rural communities. Nearly two decades back, the World Bank Group had underscored this challenge: “The traditional approach of build-neglect-rebuild is unsustainable, inefficient, and largely responsible for the poor performance of an estimated US$500 billion worth of assets in water resources and irrigation infrastructure.” 3