Pentair Ltd. announced at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting its Commitment to Action to address the safe water needs for the people in Kibera, an impoverished settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. In doing so, it will help reduce the number of residents who suffer from water-borne illnesses, which is the leading cause of death around the world.
Pentair will deliver not only a financial commitment, but also its water engineering and technical expertise. The company will leverage its full breadth of products and its global manufacturing footprint to substantially increase access to safe drinking water in Kibera.
The CGI Commitment to Action between Pentair, Starkey Hearing Foundation and Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) represents a collective impact approach-addressing the many needs of the community-thereby improving the quality of life for the Kibera residents.
"Partnerships are the lifeblood of CGI," said Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation. "We are grateful for how our partners have mobilized around Shining Hope for Communities. Pentair s commitment to action will help double the number of Kibera residents who have access to clean drinking water, while enabling Shining Hope for Communities to reach its full potential."
"We are excited to announce our Clinton Global Initiative commitment to deliver clean water to the people of Kibera," said Randall J. Hogan, Chairman and CEO, Pentair. "Safe water is a human rights issue, a women s rights issue and the key to economic development."
One of the most densely populated places on the planet, Kibera has an estimated population of 1.5 million residents living in an area of less than 2.0 square miles, smaller than New York City s Central Park. There is no running water, and residents pay exorbitant rates for water-often two to ten times what Nairobi city residents pay. In 2012, SHOFCO implemented a pilot program to create a more stable, fairly priced supply of clean water to provide dependable access to clean water to community members, and help reduce the number of people getting sick from drinking water-borne illnesses. The revenues from the project not only sustain the water system, but also help to fund the Kibera School for Girls, thereby creating an integrated link between clean water, girls education and community development.
"We believe that the innovative model set forth by Shining Hope for Communities holds great promise," said Hogan. "Through our safe water work around the globe, Pentair has developed sustainable and cost-effective solutions that not only drastically reduced waterborne diseases in the communities served, but also provide key learnings that will be applied to the Building a Better Kibera project."
Pentair and The Pentair Foundation, together with its partners, have worked to address safe water needs around the globe - reaching an estimated 500,000 people with clean water to date. Pentair has translated the learnings from those experiences into a number of success principles for clean water projects. In its project in Colon, Honduras, a follow up study showed that the successful application of these principles reduced the number of people suffering from water-borne illness by 80 percent.
With the Building a Better Kibera project, Pentair and its partners will apply Pentair s tested protocol to replicate what has proven to be successful, while innovating new approaches that offer the potential of scale and wider applicability in challenging high-density urban environments. Additionally, Pentair will be seeking to link the success of this project with other investments it is making in clean water in and around Nairobi, including with its commitment to protecting Nairobi s water source upstream through conservation and improved agricultural practices in partnership with The Nature Conservancy.
