I can’t say how pleased I am that Thomas Bjelkeman has just received funding for his important AKVO project. I am especially proud and pleased because I serve on the advisory board of Movement Design Bureau, and have helped AKVO co-founder Mark Charmer with his marketing and social software strategies in getting to this point. Clean from the roots up. How could you not want to help? Given Mark’s strong focus on open source methods for research, advisory, and fund-raising… you can see why I got involved. Akvo’s mission:
To provide free and open working knowledge, a collaborative community, finance solutions and a marketplace for the water and sanitation community.
Akvo is the first internet based open knowledge platform dedicated to small scale water and sanitation solutions; easy to access, great to work with and delivering practical information.
Akvo will make it possible to connect funds directly to local initiatives. By doing so it will significantly reduce transaction costs, and makes it easier to attract additional sources of funding to provide the poor with water and sanitation. Through Akvo you will see how money is spent and how projects develop in a transparent and visual appealing way.
Why?
More than 1.1 billion people have no safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation around the world.
Each year, as a result, 1.8 million children die of diarrhoea or other diseases, 440 million school days are missed, and in sub-Saharan Africa alone US$28.4 billion are lost in productivity and opportunity costs. UN Millennium Development Goal 7, target 10 states that by 2015 we must halve the number of people in the world who lack clean drinking water and basic sanitation.
So what is the news, exactly? Akvo can now move from stalking horse to production platform- it can really begin to drive partnerships and begin to roll out clean water initiatives. Akvo was an idea. Now its an organisation. That is quite a burden. Hopefully I can continue to help.
A group of eight investors led by Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP), Partners for Water and UN-HABITAT has agreed to finance Akvo in a signing session in Rotterdam, Holland. This unique new water venture will reduce the cost and complexity of providing clean water and basic sanitation to the world’s poor through open source internet tools, methods and working practices. The agreements were made during Unicef’s World Water Day matchmaking event, hosted by Prince Willem-Alexander of Orange and the Mayor of Rotterdam, Ivo Opstelten.
The investment, comprising at least €400,000 of cash grants and €100,000 of in-kind support, will enable Akvo to develop its core product, extend its global network and complete arrangements for a further €1m loan. This is the second funding round for Akvo which was created in autumn 2006 and grew with €212,000 of seed investment from NWP and Partners for Water. New investors include Aqua 4 All, ASN Bank, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, NEDAP, Union of Waterboards and Simavi.
Akvo has this month signed agreements with implementation partners in the developing world to support over 75 projects this year. These NGO partners are Women in Europe for a Common Future, Rain Foundation, NWP NGO Platform, Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), WASTE, Simavi, Practica Foundation, AquaEst and FODRA. Other strategic partners include Acacia Institute, AT@Work, WESNET India, Arghyam, Rural Water Supply Network, Micro Water Facility and the Informal World Water Forum 4 Appropriate Technology Network.
I am pretty sure Mark and Thomas will be at the pub right now. They deserve it. Today beer, and tomorrow back to cleaner water. One of the things I particularly like is Mark’s iconoclastic approach to marketing. See the poster above.
Thank for the kind words James.
It should be said that that it isn’t one person that has received funding for the Akvo project. It is the Akvo team, which involves lots of people and organisations, whom without Akvo could not exist.
Thanks, Thoma