Category: Enterprises

Uganda’s COVID-19 water sector response – a threat to sustainability or an opportunity?

Everflow is a community-funded enterprise providing preventative maintenance and emergency repair services to keep rural Ugandan water wells flowing. The Stone Family Foundation began supporting Everflow at the end of 2019 to conduct a study in partnership with Stanford University to assess the willingness and ability to pay for water maintenance services, as well as costs and benefits to users, communities and local government.

Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, two district local governments asked Everflow to service all the wells that needed repairs across the two districts. In this blog Igor Markov, Director of Business Development at Lifeline, based in Kampala, reflects on his visit to two communities and the risk and opportunity this support has highlighted.

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Tackling challenges of pit latrine emptying in urban slums – lessons from Sanergy’s Mtaa Fresh project

Louise Couder (Director, External Relations) and Sheila Kibuthu (Assistant Manager, Communications) at Sanergy, a sanitation service provider in Kenya, reflect on the results and drivers of success of a new pit emptying project, aimed at ensuring the safe disposal of waste from urban communities.

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Embedding a problem-led sales approach to increase access to safe water in East Africa

In the second of two blog posts Abhay Nihalani, the Marketing Director at Jibu, expands on the sales approach Jibu have adopted to help franchisees overcome challenges in selling clean water to customers in East Africa.

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Sales strategies for increasing coverage and providing safe water

To mark World Water Day 2019, in the first of two blog posts Abhay Nihalani, the Marketing Director at Jibu, describes the challenges their franchisees have faced when selling clean water to customers, and some of the tools and approaches they have adopted to increase market penetration.

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Scaling-up innovative sanitation business models: Lessons from Lusaka

WSUP has been working with the water and sanitation utility in Lusaka to support a new pit-emptying service targeted at low-income customers. This initial work, funded in part by SFF, has helped shape the utility’s scale-up plans for faecal sludge management services under the city’s new multi-million-dollar investment programme. This blog reflects on lessons learned, and on how this experience links with the Foundation’s approach to funding.

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