Water Access Projects in Brazil and India Start at the Bottom and Rise to the Top

Industry, consumers and public agencies shape a new way of designing development projects

(New York, 24 April 2015) – Making clean water available to all for drinking and sanitation traditionally is treated as a command-and-control operation – by building infrastructure, sending messages to consumers, and marshalling the resources of aid agencies. A new “collaboration lab” methodology being field tested in Brazil and India, and soon in other nations as well, builds on the premise that businesses with exposure to water issues, civil society organizations and local Governments can best zero in on problems, mobilize resources and creative approaches, and put together a development approach that flows upstream, not down.

The Brazil Collaboration Lab was designed by Global Compact Network Brazil to survey partnership interests and potential opportunities and to engage the players in specific projects that are particularly urgent in a nation suffering from severe drought in all of its regions. A 2015 progress report shows five projects underway in areas ranging from treatment of waste water, reduction of watershed pollution, recycling solid residuals before they reach coastal areas, and municipal water governance.

Brazilian firms that participate in the UN Global Compact are taking part in the effort, along with those that are not Global Compact participants.

The Brazil Collaboration Lab will also be analyzing projects as they move forward to see which offer the most potential for scaling up in more locations or on a national scale. Taking part in the November 2014 launch of the project in Sao Paulo was Alexandre Comin, Director of Competitiveness in the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, who strongly endorsed the role of corporate responsibility in ensuring popular access to water and sanitation. Links to UN agencies have been established, and discussions are underway with the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate, a worldwide initiative for water management and sanitation partnerships.

Water has long been a make-or-break social, economic and even political issue in India, which is home to nearly 20 per cent of the world population but only 4 per cent of renewable freshwater resources. The pilot phase of the India Collaboration Lab began in late 2013, with an emphasis on social enterprises. Global Compact Network India, the convening force of the Collaboration Lab, noted that while healthcare, agri-business and clean energy are attracting water-oriented investments,  funding for enterprises operating in the livelihood, water consumption and sanitation sectors poses a much larger challenge.

In the follow-up, for example, an Indian-based social enterprise is able to bring water purification tablets to market via the distribution network of a major cement manufacturer.

Global Compact Network India is already planning to adapt the methodology to other issue areas that are contained within the UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), scheduled to be approved by the General Assembly this September. Future efforts in other countries will be able to choose from the SDG menu. Next up is Colombia, where planning is already underway for a Collaboration Lab to open later this year.

• Learn more about the India Collaboration Lab
• Read more about The Bottom-Up Approach: An Integrated Global-Local Strategic Planning Process

Contacts

Tim Wall
Senior Policy Adviser
UN Global Compact
wallt@un.org

Rosedel Davies-Adewebi
Business Partnerships Hub Manager, UN-Business Partnerships
UN Global Compact
rdaviesadewebi@unglobalcompact.org