Our potential

The need to reach millions

BioSandFilter.org believes that the provision of safe water and sanitation is fundamental to poverty alleviation. We are convinced that appropriate technology is one of the tools needed to achieve much wider and more rapid access to improved water supply by those that don’t have it.

To do this, solutions are needed that can reach millions, not merely the thousands and tens of thousands targeted by conventional water projects. Such technology needs to be cheap, mass-producible, effective and simple to use and maintain. Bio-sand filters combine all that, as is evident from the information available on this site.

Secondly, a market-driven environment needs to be created where consumers’ needs are met – even if these consumers happen to be poor. Despite large investments having been made in water and sanitation interventions during the last decades, the results have not been as impressive as we would hope. Many large-scale projects have been unsustainable, at times because the users were not properly involved during the project design, nor consulted on what they were actually willing to pay for.

Smaller community-based projects have been more successful. However, it takes a lot of time and resources to achieve meaningful community participation and contribution. Hence, it is very difficult to repeat such projects on a larger scale.

A market-driven approach on the other hand avoids these pitfalls, if sufficient demand is created for what consumers consider an attractive product. Social marketing has proved an efficient tool for the marketing of beneficial goods. It is this approach that we feel is the best way to start up biosand filtration projects.