Water for People helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities, and hygiene education programs.
Conventional humanitarian approaches to providing safe water and sanitation in the developing world often fail.
WFP works with government and water agencies to develop systems that serve everyone, with management, coordination, revenues, and community involvement to keep them working.
Ned Breslin's ambition is to help countries improve their quality of life by developing locally maintained, sustainable sources of drinking water.
Water for People shifts the thinking of the water sector, moving toward universal coverage and durability.
Water changes everything. Children stay in school. People live longer, healthier, more productive lives, with more time to work, play, and simply spend together. Jobs are created. When systems are maintained locally, this change lasts forever and the impact increases with each generation.
Water for People has a bold vision for the future: the passionate pursuit of sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene services for all. We call our strategy to achieve this vision Destination 2030. Why 2030? It is the target year for United Nations member countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, ultimately.
Founder, The Invitation
Ned Breslin first joined Water For People as director of international programs in 2006 after spending more than 16 years in Africa, working for much of that time on the challenge of providing clean water. Three years later in 2009 he was named Water For People’s CEO following Colleen Stiles, Steve Werner, Paul Sobeich, and Ken Miller (founder). His on-the-ground experience had convinced him that the organization needed to change its thinking about “beneficiaries” and take a bolder, market-based approach. Key to this was Water For People’s work with government and water agencies to develop systems that serve everyone. The systems need sound management, coordination, steady revenues, and community involvement to keep them working. Ned helped the organization move away from simply reporting annual beneficiaries and instead measure the long-term impact of its water and sanitation projects through in-depth mapping and monitoring and evaluation. He pioneered the Everyone Forever strategy, focused on extending sustainable water and sanitation solutions to households, schools, and clinics at the district level.
In 2015, Ned departed Water For People and Eleanor Allen joined as CEO later that year. Eleanor's profile is included in the Leadership section.
Since Water for People began implementing the Everyone Forever (EF) model in 2010, it has reached more than 4.7 million people with access to safe, reliable water. We have reached nearly 4,000 communities with safe water and nearly 1,600 schools with water and sanitation programming; also creating nearly 2,500 permanent jobs. By partnering with micro-finance organizations to find solutions to treat pit latrine waste, alongside other innovative sanitation programs, more than 1.3 million people have been reached with sanitation services. In Rwanda, the national government adopted EF in 2016. Working with the Ministry of Infrastructure, WFP helps implement, test, and scale the model to all Rwandans. The model is currently being piloted in five districts with plans to add seven more districts in the next few years before national roll-out. In Bolivia, WFP partners with the National Vice Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation on the goal for full coverage of the country’s 11 million people.
If you could track my radius of movement since March 2020, I bet 98 percent of my footsteps were in my house. At first my new and small world DC (during COVID) was claustrophobic and oppressive. I felt I was under house arrest, “confined” to my home after years…
It took a global pandemic to raise the world’s awareness of the importance of handwashing and access to clean water – basic services that over 2 billion people in the world still lack. Many of us in the US and…
Water For People's goal is clear and ambitious: lasting quality water services for every family, clinic and school—forever. When people have access to clean water all the time, their lives…
The global water and sanitation crisis is one of the world’s most intractable problems–and one that has been addressed by the development, public, and private sectors since the dawn of…
Universal access to safe water in Latin America? How is this possible to achieve in a region where some of the most beautiful tourist destinations in the world have signs…
