Decentralized Safe Water for Asia

Investing in Impact

P4G has provided the partnership with US $100,000 in catalytic grant funding. 

The Decentralized Safe Water for Asia partnership with Imagine H2O and Drinkwell will fund five PayGo systems to provide safe drinking water for up to 1,000 households in Bangladesh facing water quality challenges like arsenic, flouride and iron contamination as well as saltwater intrusion. Drinkwell’s nanotechnology-based hybrid ion exchange resins (HIX-Nano) combined with IoT-based sensors and smart meters not only provides people with safe drinking water but also reduces reading fees, pipe leakage and non-revenue water.  

This innovative technology requires little to no electricity, recovers 99% of input water, and generates ~2% of the waste compared to Reverse Osmosis solutions, a widely used filtration process that rejects up to 50% of water treated.   

The Decentralized Safe Water for Asia model builds on Drinkwell’s successful track record of jointly financing and deploying water ATM kiosks with water utilities in Bangladesh. Since 2017, 270 systems have been deployed in Dhaka and Chittagong serving over 300,000 people. In alignment with the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, this partnership adapts Drinkwell’s technology and operating model to scale piped water networks across peri-urban and rural regions of the country. 

The results from the initial Decentralized Safe Water for Asia deployments will be documented to support knowledge exchange with utility leaders from other P4G member countries. By facilitating learning and replication of the partnership across the wider region, Drinkwell and Imagine H2O aim to operate and maintain 2,000 PayGo systems across South and Southeast Asia by 2030.