UNC Faculty And Students To Develop Plan To Get Clean Water In Poorer Homes

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http://www.terradaily.com/reports/UNC_Faculty_And_Students_To_Develop_Plan_To_Get_Clean_Water_In_Poorer_Homes_999.html

by Staff Writers
Chapel Hill IN (SPX) Oct 08, 2007

Faculty and students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are setting out to discover whether applying business principles to public health problems can result in solutions that will save lives in developing countries with limited access to safe drinking water. The Carolina Global Water Partnership has been established to bring together experts from UNC's School of Public Health, Kenan-Flagler Business School and Kenan Institute-Asia.
They will focus on increasing the availability and usage of water treatment technologies that can be used in homes in the developing world that do not have clean running water. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 2 million children die each year from diarrhea and related illnesses caused by unsafe drinking water and inadequate hygiene and sanitation.

The partnership is the second Gillings Innovation Laboratory - interdisciplinary research groups funded initially through a gift to the School of Public Health from Dennis and Joan Gillings. The idea for this innovation lab was proposed by students. Leading faculty researchers and postdoctoral fellows, along with select outside experts, will work with students on the project.

"We're really excited about the opportunity to work with faculty and students at Kenan- Flagler to find business models that will increase coverage and sustained use of water filters and other household water treatment technologies," said Mark Sobsey, Kenan Professor of environmental sciences and engineering in the School of Public Health.

"We know that biosand and ceramic filters and other household water treatment technologies make an enormous difference in the health of people who don't have access to clean drinking water," Sobsey said. "We have the technologies, but now it's a matter of finding ways to get these technologies into communities and households, and have people adopt and use them effectively and sustainably. This project has the potential to save many millions of lives," Sobsey said.

"Micro-financing and micro-franchising may prove key to getting these life-saving technologies into homes that need them," said Lisa Jones-Christensen, Kenan-Flagler assistant professor of entrepreneurship.

"One way we hope to enable these technologies to reach scale is to provide small loans to people who wouldn't qualify for conventional loans, and help them franchise small businesses. We've found that giving the filters or other technologies away is not sustainable and doesn't really promote the continued use of the technology. We believe we can find models that will be successful in getting point-of-use (home) water purification products into the homes of people who need them," Jones-Christensen said.

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"This is a great opportunity to help people get access to these treatment technologies and begin to expand the level of coverage by thinking about new and different ways to finance them," she said. "The biosand filter is one technology that will benefit from microfinance and microfranchising."