Clean Water For All

Over the past several months, I’ve come across several articles and books that have been extremely informative regarding the topics of clean water and financial services in third-world countries.  I’d like to share them both as a resource for current and future volunteers, as well for anyone else who might be interested in learning more on these topics.  Some PDFs are large files, so I’ve just listed the URL.  Over time, I may add to this list, so feel free to check back occasionally.

Water Purification and Storage

• http://www.poverty.ch/documents/Safewater.pdf –  An excellent article describing the need for clean water, providing an overview of various low-cost purification technologies, and examining the successes and failures of clean water programs of past programs around the world.
• http://www.psi.org/sites/default/files/publication_files/usaid-wwd.pdf –  A similar article as the one above, but with a deep focus on the marketing of PSI’s WaterGuard product.
• http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/economic/prevent_diarrhoea.pdf –  World Health Organization article evaluating the cost and effectiveness of various purification methods.
• http://www.path.org/publications/series.php?i=16 –  A collection of articles from PATH on safe water projects.

Financial Services

• Portfolios Of The Poor by Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven  –  A fantastic book providing an in-depth look at the cash management practices and needs of the world’s poor.  (Thanks Richard for the recommendation)
• Banker To The Poor by Muhammad Yunus  –  An interesting story about Nobel Prize winning Muhammad Yunus and the creation of Grameen Bank, one of the largest self-sustaining micro-finance institutions in the world.  (Thanks Ed for the recommendation)