Healthcare facility upgrades in Zambia: Fully funded! 

To our U.S. donors: Please do not send any money to World Vision for our plan to upgrade healthcare clinics in Zambia. Unless, of course, you’re one of the many people who have made multi-year commitments to this effort. It is not often that a non-profit asks you not to send money, but we’re all about getting the job done. This ambitious project is fully funded!

Less than two years ago, we announced our bold vision to upgrade 125 healthcare facilities in Zambia serving an estimated 1.1 million people by 2025. The vision was bold because the need is great. Before we started our work, less than half of the healthcare centers in Zambia had clean water on premises and only 1 in 6 had basic handwashing facilities. This resulted in women having to bring water to the clinic to wash themselves and their babies after giving birth and the unhygienic conditions led to the spread of infections, including deadly sepsis, following delivery. Our goal was to upgrade all the healthcare facilities in all the areas World Vision is working in Zambia with clean water on premises, showers, flush toilets including access for disabled people, training and equipping health personnel to prevent the spread of infections, and training of community health workers to help bring improved healthcare and prevention into the communities near the clinics.  

We estimated that it would take four years to raise the needed funds and are delighted that we have finished the funding ahead of schedule. The work to upgrade all of the clinics is on track for completion in 2025, with 50 of the 125 clinics already completed.

Note that we are also making great progress in our fundraising efforts to finish the job of reaching everyone, everywhere we work with clean water in Zambia having now raised over $36.7 million of the $50 million needed from U.S. donors. We also continue to work towards our efforts to upgrade all the healthcare facilities everywhere we work in Niger — with 110 clinics still needing funding. 

100,000 water points mapped!

World Vision is committed to becoming a global leader in monitoring our water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) efforts. One major initiative toward this commitment is the adoption of a digital data management platform called mWater to map water points in the communities, districts, and countries where we work. mWater is a free platform that uses modern digital and mobile technology, allowing us to collect, analyze, and share our data.  

We launched our digital monitoring initiative less than three years ago, and now, thanks to the efforts of our staff in 35 countries, we've hit a huge milestone: mapping over 100,000 water points!  

While we are excited to reach this milestone, we are even more excited about how this data can be used to improve our programs. For example, mapping water facilities helps us ensure we are reaching the most vulnerable people since we can visualize coverage levels and identify underserved areas. As new facilities are supported and mapped, the real-time data from mWater allows us to track our progress over time. When overlaid with watershed boundaries, we learn more about the dependencies of water points on common water resources, and what is happening "upstream" of the water points.

This is a huge step forward for our water efforts and will enable data-driven decisions and improve the sustainability of water services.

Finishing the job in Rwanda

We want to share how we've validated the fulfillment of the commitment we made in 2018 to reach everyone, everywhere we work in Rwanda with access to clean water — more than 1 million people in 39 sub-districts (sectors). We have used high resolution population datasets developed from satellite images and machine learning to visualize where people live across the sub-districts. Our field teams have also mapped existing water points in the targeted areas, overlaying and comparing the population and water point data to determine where we needed to provide new water sources. Our goal was to provide a clean water source within a 30-minute round trip of people’s homes.     

Now, as we complete this effort, we have used the satellite images and mapping of water points combined with household surveys on collection time and service quality to verify completion of our commitment. You’ll not want to miss a brief overview of this effort by Allen Hollenbach — our technical director of WASH services and beloved map guy! 

Prayer requests

Give praise that God has brought highly capable and dedicated staff to World Vision who are helping millions of people each year gain access to clean water and sanitation services.

Give praise for advanced new tools that are enabling an even better return on investment for our donors by improving functionality and sustainability of water points through more sophisticated monitoring. 

Give thanks that the healthcare clinic upgrades in Zambia are fully funded and that we have been able to restart our health and water work in Niger.