The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Procter & Gamble (P&G) hosted an event this week to highlight their partnership designed to provide safe drinking water at the household level to millions of children in Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. The event was held in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. and featured officials from both organizations, as well as representatives from other participating partners.
"This partnership is a significant step to provide safe drinking water in Africa and elsewhere for millions of people," said Dr. Kent Hill, assistant administrator for USAID's Bureau of Global Health.
This partnership focuses on the provision of two technologies to disinfect drinking water: WaterGuard and PUR.
"We have provided more than 600 million liters of safe drinking water over the last three years," said Charlotte Otto, global external relations officer at P&G. "Our efforts to date have been a drop in the ocean compared to the vast need and this partnership with USAID enables us to scale-up our efforts in order to make a much larger health impact."
While USAID and P&G are key collaborators on this effort, it is comprised of a network of partnerships focused on the provision of safe drinking water. The main partner for social marketing is PSI, a mutual partner of USAID and P&G in many countries. Currently PSI has outreach awareness programs for PUR in eight countries, and WaterGuard, with USAID support, in 18 countries. More than six million sachets of PUR and seven million bottles of WaterGuard have already been provided in Kenya, Malawi, and Ethiopia.
Source: USAID
