|
>View discussions about this entry Country: India
Organization: Naandi Foundation
Field of Work: Water
Year the initative began (yyyy) 2005
YouTube Upload: http://www.sendspace.com/file/mee56h
Project URL: http://www.naandi.org
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? Community owned and managed user fee based model that expands access to safe drinking water to a wider section of society resulting in improved health
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? Naandi Foundation has developed and is implementing a holistic model that recognizes that demand for quality water and sanitation services exists and that by capitalizing on communities’ willingness to pay, accountability can be enforced through a contractual relationship between service providers and the local government. This innovative model of public-private partnership has the following salient features:
• Engages communities through a Health & Hygiene Education Campaign specifically targeted towards behavioral changes such as the elimination of open defecation. An intensive on-ground campaign combines education on water, sanitation and health. Its effectiveness is measured through concrete outputs such as the increased consumption of safe drinking water and improved sanitation practices among village community members. • Tackles the issue of contamination in drinking water through a unique combination of advanced and appropriate technology. • Reaches under-served populations through a replicable, sustainable commercial model wherein capital and recurring costs are recovered through the collection of user fees. Community’s contribution increases ownership, improves accountability of services. Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? Working with the community, Naandi Foundation identifies what specific problems the community is facing in accessing safe drinking water. This could range from a high level of totally dissolvable solids, or a high level of fluoride, or a high level of bacterial contamination causing diarrhea, and other gastro-related health problems. A baseline is conducted towards assessing the socio-economic and technical feasibility for a water unit and then a ‘Tripartite Agreement’ the roles and responsibilities of the partners (village council, technology provider and Naandi Foundation) is signed.
How do you plan to expand your innovation? The following are the expansion plans of Naandi Foundation’s Safe Drinking Water Project:
1. Link-up with financial institutions to create the up-scaling of this model using its business-revenue component i.e. Earned Income Model 2. Integrate this model into Naandi’s wider operations of water resource protection management support through greater linkages with donor institutions to support holistic community development 3. Greater partnership with public sector to endorse and support this model in region where rural communities have no access to safe drinking water. 4. Linkage with venture capital firms based on a moderate return on capital employed 5. Short-term to medium-term projects with support of international bilateral agencies 6. Partnership with research institutions to further verify the impact and documentation of the model to support its up-scaling Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how do you create them? Naandi Foundation, has partnered with WaterHealth International U.S.A, and developed the unique Community Safe Water Systems (CSWS) model to combat bacterial contamination and address water-borne diseases in the costal regions of Andhra Pradesh. Naandi Foundation has also partnered with Tata Projects Limited - India, in developing a similar community based model to address fluoride contamination. In both models a tripartite partnership is established with the community, represented by the village council, which plays a leading role in the implementation, maintenance and ownership of the project. In all our project areas we enter into working partnership with the state government so that it is fully informed and endorses activities under the model. These partnerships are through Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Agreements for Cooperation etc.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. Expanding access to safe drinking water especially the marginalized rural communities with a view to positively contribute to improved health and productivity.
How many people have you served or plan to serve? At present, Naandi’s community-based safe drinking water project is being implemented in two states (Andhra Pradesh and Punjab), partnering with a range of leading national and international technical solution providers and leading corporate and industrial houses. Naandi has over 150 operational water purification plants and 200 plants in various stages of construction, across these states. The table below represents how the Safe Water Division within Naandi has grown in the past few years, mobilising more and more people in accessing safe water:
Year No. of Plants Total Beneficiaries
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation? In summary the expected measurable impacts of the CSWS are:
1. Improved anthropometric measurements esp. in vulnerable groups such as young children.
Exactly who are the beneficiaries of your innovation? Naandi focus on the socially and economically disenfranchised groups, such as scheduled castes and tribes and other backward groups, which are often restricted in their access to water due to social and economic status reasons. These groups often have extremely limited purchasing power, restricting their choices in accessing safe drinking water. They are often landless laborers; incur high medical expenditure; have only one earning member in the family and live in government subsidized housing projects.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? 1.Contributions/Grants for setting up of the plant (Government/Semi Government agencies, Corporate, Trusts, Charities, other Institutional Donor, Individual donors, Non-Resident Indians).
2.Household contribution for setting up of the plant ( at least 200 plus households in a village contribute a minimal to create wider community ownership). 3.Registration/Enrollment membership and water can cost fee 4.User fee charged per unit of safe drinking water. 5.Interest earned from the revolving funds from collection of user fee. 6.Income from distribution activities Provide information on your finances and organization: Financial Year: 2006-07 USD:$17,877,805 (Rs.71.69 crores)
Financial Year: 2007-08 USD:$22,925,187 (Rs.91.93 crores) Naandi’s mix of programmes has traditionally had a leaning towards contributed income through public sector and philanthropic funding wherein the proportion of internally generated resources in this combination was relatively smaller. However, for the past three years, Naandi has actively initiated projects and programmes, which are modeled on the Earned Income Model and are expected to provide long-term financial support to the organization – like the initiation of the safe drinking water project, assisting farmer’s cooperatives on a reimbursable fee basis, consultancy projects in the education & health sector. What is the potential demand for your innovation? Full time Staff: 303 Volunteers: 5000
Potential demand: 806 Million - India's Rural Poor because: 1. 215,741 Rural habitations do not have an adequate water source in terms of quality or quantity within 1.6km radius of their habitation . 2. Despite the high levels of arsenic, fluoride and pesticides that contaminate many drinking water sources the government views chemical contamination not as a priority. 3. Approx.700,000 death per year are caused by diarrhea which could be associated with contamination in drinking water What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? •Maintaining technology appropriateness(avoiding obsolescence) and delivering agreed-upon quality of drinking water to the beneficiaries on a long-term basis.
•Dilution of the benefit-value-proposition over a period of time with Communication phasing-out •Dropouts/Lapsers •Continuity of the attractiveness of our price proposition which is currently less than 50% of the next comparative alternative available. •Government announcement of provisioning free water to communities What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. The story behind this program was to improve the overall health of rural community. esp. children and young mothers and reduce the mortality and morbidity by providing adequate and safe drinking water. This was closely linked to Naandi Foundation’s goal of ‘Eradicating Poverty’ as water security is vital for marginalized groups to bring themselves out of poverty. Medical expenses is a major factor in families being forced back into poverty as they are often forced to sell their land to meet these expenses. Therefore, Naandi felt that by entering this sector and addressing it through a community-based sustainable user fee model, Naandi could contribute to addressing this issue and positively impact the lives of marginalized groups. In 2005, the first community-based water plant was set up and extensive baseline, mid and end term evaluations were conducted, both in-house and by third party monitors. Only after the success of this pilot did Naandi decide to expand its operations, after seeing the positive effects it had on the holistic development of rural communities.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material: Amit has obtained his Post Graduation in Management and has done an Advanced programme in General Management from IIM, Calcutta. He has around 14 years of experience in Social Marketing & Project Management in sectors like Social Marketing of Health Products , Community-based Developmental Programmes, Rural Marketing and Natural Resources Management holding different portfolios with Private/Corporate, Public Sector , Not For Profit organisations such as Aditya Birla Group, Agricultural Finance Corporation, Unit Trust of India, Hindustan Latex Ltd and now with Naandi
Contact Information:
Amit Jain
National Director - Water Program Naandi Foundation (NGO) Discussions about this entry |
| Attachments - please click on each image to see it full size: |
|---|
Naandi SDW Picture Gallery.pdf |
Community Safe Drinking Water Programme of Naandi was excellant step.
Nandi is doing good job.
It is an good initiative.
Providing the mineral water to all the people in the country to cheapest cost.
My congratulations to everyone associated with this noble initiative.
Identifying the need of the safe water for underprivileged and delivering it by dedicating time, money and energy is worth rewarding. It would become a great source of motivation for others to replicate the model in their part of the country.
Naandi's effort in creating a collaborative framework, wherein community is owning up the agenda of changing certain behaviours & practices, is worth appreciating.
Good Luck!
This programme will help all the villagers to get safe drinking water.
It is a very good and an appreciable step.
One thing to note that water is a Natural Resource ; it is worth preserving ; it is a life line for the Human Race.
A further step in the National / International Integration of the water resource will be a wise step in saving the Man kind from extinction.
I will call the present step as an Indigeneous effort for a region /state /country to take action to provide water to their countrymen but I further wish that this action - AN INTEGRATED ACTION WORLD WIDE should percolate to all the human beings at the earliest.