Peer Water Exchange
Country:
India
Producer:
Peer Water Exchange, Mr. Rajesh Shah
Blue Planet Network's program, Peer Water Exchange (PWX), is an online global platform and network of 90+ water, sanitation and hygiene funders and implementing organizations, designed to encourage collaboration, increase impact, and promote a cross-sector focus on project process and lessons learned. Nearly one billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.7 billion people lack access to a toilet. To solve these mammoth global challenges requires changes in the way the entire value chain operates. Through PWX, Blue Planet Network brings together all stakeholders in the water sector: funders, service providers, project implementers and beneficiaries. The web-based multimedia exchange platform enables stakeholders to adopt a new mindset and to collaborate in bringing safe drinking water and hygienic, dignified sanitation to all. The only scalable, map-driven, and transparent platform in the water sector, PWX is the first truly participatory decision-making system in development work, allowing empowered applicants to weigh in on funding decisions. All the data on the exchange is generated by the users. Blue Planet Network's PWX combines people, process, and technology to help make a sustainable dent in the global water crisis. Blue Planet Network is an award-winning nonprofit with a mission to exponentially increase the impact of safe drinking water and sanitation programs for people around the world. Since 2002, Blue Planet Network 90+ member organizations have equipped more than 830,000 people in 25 countries with safe drinking water and improved sanitation.
Jury Evaluation:
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) aim at reducing by half the number of people without safe drinking water and sanitation. The Peer Water Exchange (PWX), based in Bangalore, India is the water sector’s marketplace to host and manage all global transactions and long-term activities to address the above challenge.
PWX has created a web based multimedia exchange platform to share information on funding, monitoring and realising thousands of grass-roots water and sanitation projects worldwide. PWX brings together all stakeholders in the water sector: funders, service providers, project implementers, and beneficiaries, gets them to adopt a new mindset and collaborate to resolve a critical issue. Essentially all the data is generated by the users and a "bottom-up" process is the result.
Operating as a network without a central bureaucracy, empowered members tackle distributed tasks related to their core competency to select, fund, manage, and track the impact of all water and sanitation projects efficiently, collaboratively, and transparently. PWX divides up the problem of soliciting thousands of applications, selecting and refining them, managing them, and measuring their impact into small manageable tasks which are assigned to a network of peers. The work can thus get done in a decentralized, bureaucracy-free manner with little overhead and maximum transparency. Not only are a larger number of resources brought to bear, moreover they are connected in a collaborative way that maximizes learning and sharing. PWX connects people, processes, and technology to help make a sustainable dent in the global water crisis. This site is available in English (with Hindi, French and Spanish explanation).
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