WASH AI

Our WASH Pulse is now "on-demand" meaning you can get AI-powered insights from all of our updates (19,000+, with 200 new updates every week). Use natural language to search. Try it out: washai.org/pulse

Pipes get fixed. Water still falls apart. Why? Because water isn’t just technical. It’s political. Cultural. Behavioral. Human. In Jordan, Zambia, and Ukraine, I’ve seen this play out again and again: Engineers deliver. But the reforms fail. Not because of bad design: But because local voices are sidelined. Governance ignored. Donor agendas overwrite lived realities. What if water isn’t a machine to fix— …but a living system to understand? We need to stop asking: “What should we build?” And start asking: “How do we listen?” → What’s one tired trope in your sector that needs to go? ♻️ Repost to help your network see water differently 👉 Follow Yulia Titova for insights on water governance, and designing development that works. 📸 Video courtesy of Alex Passini

Just switched out Llama 3.3 70b to the hot released today Llama 4 17b (scout) for WASH AI pulse service (Try it: washai.org/pulse) .. immediately outperforms on quality of synthesis, less hallucinations and faster 🤯.. not to mention more computationally efficient ⚡️🌱

🎉 790+ listeners! We all didn’t expect this. Indeed the conversation on #African #WomenInWater is gaining traction more than ever. What happens when you bring #GenerationY Water Women experts from Kenya 🇰🇪, Uganda 🇺🇬, and Tanzania 🇹🇿 together in 1 space? You get a powerhouse of trailblazing women redefining Africa’s water sector. As the session moderator I noted these women aren’t stuck in the shackles of the past, they are rewriting history and setting precedence. 🔢Is it evidence we need? They’re researching it. 📜 Is it policy change? They’re enacting it. 💰 Is it business? They’re entrepreneurs. 💡This wasn’t just a #XSpace. It was a movement. A space where we confronted the paradox of exclusion in an inclusive world, the legal maze of governance, the barriers keeping women from boardrooms, and the urgency of turning words into real action. 👑 Women in the water sector are no longer waiting for permission. We are demanding space, driving change, and making history. The speakers: Lena Musoka, MPH, MSc Peace Musonge Jacqueline Muthura each brought a revolutionary perspective, proving that when women lead, we don’t just create solutions we create transformation. This session was the embodiment of what happens when relatable, practical, and action-driven conversations take center stage. 🎤 Less theory, more action. Less tokenism, more real leadership. 🚀 This wasn’t just an inspiring session, it was a statement. The conversations must shift toward practical, relatable, and transformative action. And we’re just getting started! ✨ Missed it? Catch the highlights here from 00:21 https://lnkd.in/d-ApBYWP RWSN - Rural Water Supply Network Aquaya KEWASNET (Secretariat) Julia Ayieko, MPRSK Joan Kones, MPH Local Government Strategy Forum Local Public Sector Alliance Fresh Life #AccelerateAction #InternationalWomensDay #WaterGovernance #SDG6 #SDG5 Her Network 🌍💦

🤖 TL;DR 📚 Public Development Banks' investments in water 2021-2023 (January 2025, Water Finance Coalition) 🔖 🔗 https://lnkd.in/etYKZSzv --- 💡 What's interesting about this: → PDBs invested over $108 billion in water sector from 2021-2023, with a significant 33% growth rate from 2022 to 2023 → Climate adaptation finance for water was 2.5x higher than mitigation efforts, totaling $21 billion across 17 reporting PDBs → With an estimated annual spending gap of $140.8 billion in water and sanitation, PDBs represent an untapped financing potential 📊 Water Finance Coalition's Landmark Analysis The Water Finance Coalition has published the first comprehensive analysis of Public Development Banks' (PDBs) investments in the water sector. This report examines data from 37 PDBs representing 29% of total PDB assets globally (approximately $6.4 trillion). Though representing only 7% of all PDBs worldwide, their significant financial footprint makes this analysis particularly valuable for understanding financing trends. 💡 Key Financial Findings: • Total water investments (2021-23): $108 billion, with China Development Bank accounting for 42% ($45 billion) • Excluding CDB, investments totaled $63 billion with a 33% growth rate between 2022-2023 • Top investors: China Development Bank (42%), World Bank (12%), European Investment Bank (8%) • Climate finance specifically for water: $21 billion from 17 reporting PDBs, with 45% directed to adaptation 🌏 Regional & Institutional Patterns: The analysis revealed multinational PDBs invested an average of $2.1 billion in water projects compared to national PDBs' $1.4 billion. European Investment Bank, Agence Française de Développement, and KfW Development Bank led climate-related water investments, with adaptation financing significantly outpacing mitigation efforts. 👀 Future Implications: With 536 PDBs worldwide possessing $22 trillion in assets, the potential for mobilizing additional water financing is substantial. However, standardized reporting mechanisms for water subsectors and climate tagging are needed to improve tracking and accountability. The Water Finance Coalition will continue collecting data to incentivize growing portfolios of water and climate investments across PDBs. --- WASH AI's "🤖 TL;DR 📚" is a novel service powered by WASH AI, designed to extract and summarize key takeaways from a range of published content, relevant to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. It's in beta and might make mistakes. Link to original content is provided.

How much have Public Development Banks invested in Water and Climate? Answer: it’s more than you think. With surveys, and reviewing more than 200 annual reports, here is a first very conservative attempt. Thank you to all the colleagues that patiently answered all our emails and to my co-author Daniel De Paula for his incredible eye for detail. IRCWASH Lesley Pories Pedro de Aragão Fernandes Alex Simalabwi Alex Money G H Juste NANSI, PhD

Calling on WASHies in my network! I'm reaching out to ask for your help in gathering photos or designs for child-friendly toilets and latrines. If you've implemented or seen facilities that prioritize the needs and safety of children in your work, I’d love to see them! 🚽

My top 3 post-event reflections from conversations on innovation and scale of WASH, the intersection of #AI and #WASH. 1️⃣ There is a very broad level of understanding amongst WASH practitioners of how AI works and can work to enhance and scale WASH initiatives, with a majority in the self-stated "I don't really know how it works" category. We need more AI literacy to stimulate ideation and innovative applications of AI. →💡 Tap into the incredible (wash) domain experts at local level providing insights on what is possible to seed ideas. 2️⃣ We need to rethink digital innovation funding in the WASH sector to support AI development cycles which need high flexibility, short sprints, rapid iterations, and global procurement with less bureaucracy and more emphasis on Domain Expert + AI Expert pairings for better solution building. →💡 For rapid innovation development we need to create flexible financing mechanisms that focus on nurturing agile creative solution building, not burdened by administrative or organizational/political directives 3️⃣ The technology is there and ready. The shift is human and institutional. While AI technology is evolving fast, even "yesterday's" models, frameworks and tools can be used to significantly transform the WASH sector (1) knowledge management, (2) process automation, (3) data management, (4) professional day-to-day productivity. →💡 To stimulate innovation, the WASH sector needs to focus less on "building models", rather supporting individual and organization shifts in technology adoption. For more on yesterday's session with UNICEF Innovation see https://lnkd.in/gE6Fj-C2

Main points from my session with Katherine Hoffmann Pham at the #WASH Hub UNICEF Innovation event in Copenhagen yesterday: AI for Climate-resilient WASH: From Hype to Impact 💧🌍 1️⃣ Explored AI categories from predictive analytics to natural language processing, demonstrating how different models (Gemini, Claude, Qwen,..) perform on WASH-specific knowledge tasks. 2️⃣ Identified critical gap in WASH-specific benchmarks – generic AI evaluation metrics don't adequately measure performance on specialized water and sanitation challenges. 3️⃣ Scaling AI requires moving beyond pilots through strategic investment, rapid iteration, and clear problem statements linked to practical decisions. 4️⃣ Four key scaling barriers: technological adoption challenges, contextual diversity requiring customization, cultural resistance, and resource limitations (especially disorganized data). 5️⃣ Localization is crucial – success depends on translation for specific contexts and engagement with local developer communities. 6️⃣ Practical AI development requires clear questions, quality data ("garbage in, garbage out"), defined success metrics, and multiple rapid iterations. 7️⃣ Design for digital divide by considering which components can run in low-resource settings. 8️⃣ Use human-centered design by involving actual users throughout development to address real-world processes. 9️⃣ Focus on prototyping and hands-on experience – test imperfect solutions that can be rapidly modified as technologies evolve. 1️⃣0️⃣ Empower staff to understand AI capabilities and limitations so they can confidently question potential failures, weaknesses, and biases in systems. Thank you Esther Shaylor and David Duncan for the invitation and for organizing a space for rich discussions.