Income-enabling, Not Consumptive: Association of Household Socio-economic Conditions with Safe Water and Sanitation

Water.org's programme, WaterCredit, uses microfinance to empower the world's poor to access water and sanitation. A major obstacle to scaling up this approach is the general assumption that loans for water and sanitation are too risky because they are consumptive rather than income-generating. This article challenges that argument by highlighting the financial gains people are able to derive to some extent from having water and/or sanitation infrastructure at home. Data that examine the economic implications of the reallocation of time formerly dedicated to water collection and defecation practices are provided from surveys and interviews conducted with WaterCredit borrowers in India.