Going to scale with safe water – what changes are needed to remove the barriers to scale? 2014.
By Urs Heierli and Paul Osborn, Discussion paper for 300in6.
Event the most successful projects – as described in the Hystra study: “Access to Safe Water for the Base of the Pyramid” look more like oases in the middle of a huge desert. It is unlikely that scaling these projects will lead to universal access. What is badly needed are not more oasis, but a greening of the desert in-between, and this requires significant changes from business as usual.
This discussion paper attempts to sketch out a change agenda and will describe what is needed to go to scale. Scaling-up is not a linear process of replicating successful models or pilot projects at a larger scale: it means to apply a much more holistic, better coordinated and orchestrated approach involving not only project partners but mainstream institutions of the society.