Verified Impact: Validating Our Work
Developing countries are full of failed projects. When asked why, most people point to the conditions of working in developing countries as the main culprit. While this is legitimate and challenging, other significant factors are often overlooked.
These factors primarily fall into two categories. The first is a lack of accountability with implementing organizations. The second is many local governments’ inability to drive regulation around things like construction standards (causing premature failures) and water quality (so water is not safe for consumption).
Many organizations are working hard to provide lifesaving access to safe water to those in need. However, many are charities, and in the charitable model, those funding the projects are not the direct beneficiaries of the project. This inadvertently creates an environment that tolerates bad work, which is further exacerbated by the lack of regulation that we take for granted in our own communities. Building permits, government inspections, and design standards all help ensure quality. But this lack of oversight and accountability are key issues that largely go unconsidered when driving to the root cause of failed projects in developing countries.
When Water Mission installs a safe water solution, our goal is to keep clean, safe water flowing for life. With this in mind, we are excited to share about an initiative called “verified impact” that will help ensure this is the case. Three years ago, Water Mission engaged an industry-trusted external auditor to assess the quality of our work. The certified auditor, known as Gold Standard, began auditing seven of our safe water projects (serving 49,000 people) in Tanzania to validate their functionality. Going through this process has been a good thing for Water Mission. It has provided a deeper level of insight than we have ever had and has helped us get better at our work.
Today, we have three years of third-party auditing that “verifies our impact” on these projects. We have now added four more projects in Tanzania (an additional 46,000 people) into the pilot and are exploring adding projects from other countries. At Water Mission, we are accountable to those we serve, our partners, and most importantly God. Our commitment to verifying our impact helps us live out our values of love, excellence, and integrity. This means we can continue moving toward our vision that all people have safe water and an opportunity to experience God’s love.
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