IXL Social Enterprise Case Studies Water March 2011 | Page 12

Getting Safe Water and Sanitation to the Bottom of the Pyramid through Bold and Game-changing Innovations

Dieter Zinnbauer and Rebecca Dobson, Global Corruption Report 2008: Corruption in the Water Sector (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
p. 10 and Interview with Water.org staff, January 28, 2011.
33
Interview with Water.org staff, January 28, 2011 and Internal Water.org documents.
34
Interview with Water.org staff, January 14, 2011.
35
Interview with Water.org staff, January 14, 2011.
36
Water.org, “Water Facts,” Water.org website, http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts.html, accessed January 6, 2011; Interviews with Water.org
staff, January 18, 2011; Correspondence with Water.org staff, February 15, 2011.
37
Interview with Water.org staff, January 14, 2011.
38
Water.org, “Women take action to relieve loan burdens,” Water.org website, http://water.org/2011/02/three-women-take-action-to-relieve-loan-burdens.
html, accessed February 14, 2011.
39
Water.org, “Loan turmoil, suicide attempt rectified with the right support,” Water.org website, http://water.org/2011/02/a-leader-is-born-from-loan-turmoilsuicide-attempt.html, accessed February 14, 2011.
40
Interview with Water.org staff, January 14, 2011.
41
Note: All references to WaterCredit are sourced from interviews with Water.org staff and internal Water.org documents.
42
It is important to note that WaterCredit “1.0” ran across repayment challenges. Unlike the MFI-centric strategy of today’s WaterCredit “2.0,” the initial
1.0 strategy called for Water.org itself to provide loans directly to beneficiaries (as if it was a bank). Water.org made significant loans (around USD100,000)
to large groups of beneficiaries (such as an entire village of 1,000 people) for community-wide projects (such as building a well). Accountability was
difficult in these large groups, with frequent “passing of the buck” since no single person was responsible for paying the entire loan amount. As a result,
there was not the same level of commitment and transparency as found in smaller individual/household loans where it is known exactly who owns the asset
at the end of the day (vs. one person owning 1/1000th of a well). Collecting repayments was a time-consuming, teeth-pulling process that from a costbenefit standpoint was not worth the effort. While Water.org is open to considering bett