May 31, 2007--What Works Week: Water, Water Everywhere . . .

While many of us are shopping around to decide which bottled water we should offer our allegiance to, about a third of the world’s population—two billion or more—do not have access to potable water, bottled or otherwise. This is one of the planet’s most intractable problems. Without drinkable water it is impossible to eradicate water-bourn diseases, some of which are virulent and deadly. Some who know best say that this global lack of clean water is the world’s leading problem and thus needs to be solved or tens of millions, especially children, will soon die.

Understanding that life depends on clean water, aid agencies and governmental and NGO organizations struggle with how to be helpful, while many major philanthropies devote a large percentage of their assets to fund projects to clean up polluted lakes, rivers, and wells. In general, understandably, they seek large-scale solutions that focus on improving basic infrastructure. But since so much of the problem is local and rural, these kinds of projects will not get the job done.

Fortunately, there are some promising solutions that are scaled appropriately, cost-effective, and have generated evidence that they work. They’re not sexy, but again they work and can be generalized.

Some of these solutions are currently on display at an unlikely place—the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. There you can see some of the inventions, all designed well and thus at the Cooper-Hewitt, that offer so much promise.

“A billion customers in the world are waiting for a $2 pair of eyeglasses, a $10 solar lantern and a $100 house,” claims Paul Polak who runs an organization that helps poor farmers become entrepreneurs, but most of our leading designers devote themselves to creating high-end clothing, fancy cars, and furniture that is within reach of perhaps 10 percent of the world’s population while the remaining 90 percent have very different, much more basic needs. He says, “We need a revolution to reverse that silly ratio.” (See linked NY Times story.)

In regard to water, anyone who grew up reading National Geographic magazine or ventured into rural Africa, Asia, or Latin America is familiar with how many hours a day women and girls spend fetching water in jerry jugs balanced on their heads. On display at the Cooper-Hewitt, and available worldwide for a few dollars, is a 20-gallon Q-Drum, a circular jerry can that can be pulled along so easily by a rope over even rough terrain that even a child can use it.

Also at low cost and on display is a Lifestraw drinking filter that kills bacteria as water is sucked through it. Using one allows a person to drink water from all too commonly polluted ponds and streams.

Neither of these products will solve the entire potable water problem, but their widespread use would make a huge difference in the lives of millions. It’s difficult to justify sucking on an Evian, still at a higher price per gallon than gasoline, while everyone who needs a Lifestraw is without one.