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How will the Global Water Trust fit into the mix of pre-existing organizations? Rob: Most clean water NGOs are set up as a gifting model. They bring the water infra- structure, the pipeline, they get the water running and then they leave. Unfortunately, there's no economic incentive for anyone to maintain it. Then often you show up a year, two, three years later, and those wonderful humanitarian projects haven't survived. There are hundreds of cases of this-people in rural villages in Tanzania or Ghana and elsewhere-back in the same situation they were before the NGO showed up. The NGO got to say, "we brought clean water to people," but they didn't deliver a long-term, sustainable solution. How will GWT be different? Rob: The Global Water Trust is about creating long-term, sustainable clean water solu- tions. We're ta lking about water for life. Not water for a month, a week or a year. We are trying to create a balance between water as a human right and water as an eco- nomic good and service. If you are focused exclusively on the human rights side, through a purely gifted model, which is the approach of most NGOs in gifting the water, then there's no sustainability. For example, who pays for the spare parts? Who pays vlhen it breaks down? Who pays for the maintenance over a ten, twenty-year period? Steve: Unfortunately every single society exists on an economic model, and the money has to come from somewhere. Rob: That's right. The fact is that people do pay for water. It's just that they can't pay for water that is outside their economic means. Right now, the cost of water is not within reach of almost two bi ll ion people. If those people make twenty-five dollars a month and the cost of water for a family of five is as much as eighteen dollars a month, their only opportunity is to drink dirty water. So, unlike many clean water NGOs, our plan is to fund the capital expense in addition to the operation and maintenance of the water infrastructure. We will amor- tize the cost of the project over a long period of time, getting the cost of water per person within reach. Instead of eighteen dollars per persqn per family of five, our goal is to reduce it to about sixty cents for a family of five, per month. Sixty cents, now that's doable. Exactly how would that work? Rob: We propose funding the up-front capital expense of the water infrastructure to decrease that cost over a period of, let's say, half the life of the equipment and tech- nology, which is roughly tl1enty or thirty years. This way people get clean water in a sustainable way and the cost of parts and replacements and management are included in the financial model. At the end of that period, the community owns the water infra- structure. They own their water. With our model they've always owned their \'Iater, and the infrastructure. N0\1 any revenue that could possibly be derived from that clean water infrastructure, could go to\1ards building schools and hospitals. Now these peo- ple have water for life. You say, "We fund." Where does the actual cash come from? Rob: The actual cash comes from our creating together public/private partnerships between private water equipment and technology solution-oriented companies and public sources like USAID, local banks and governments. We're developing a relationship with USAID where they will put up Treasury-backed letters of credit so that local banks will fund the risk of implementing the water infrastructure. What's the incentive for a private organization, a bank or local government to partner in something like this? Rob: The private organizations get to sell their equipment and, like buying a house, the banks get paid back over a period of time with small interest. What does it take to start a nonprofit? Rob: It takes a lot of organizing, creating the 501(c)(3) (nonprofit status) and the IRS tax-exempt status. It takes creating an organization of people who have skills and experiences that can effectively achieve our objectives. It takes work and the time to create credibility. It takes creating partnerships with private equipment and technology continued on page 78