IRC work featuring in microfinance market study

IRC’s Catarina Fonseca and Stef Smits and nine publications from IRC and partners are featuring in: Assessing Micro finance for Water and Sanitation – Exploring opportunities for sustainable scaling up, a study by Meera Mehta for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, July 2008, see text and downloadable PDF
The foundation’s Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene initiative, commissioned this research into the potential market for expanding small-scale banking and credit services to the poor. The study draws from global datasets and activities in 38 countries throughout Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as interviews with nearly 100 practitioners from the microfinance and water, sanitation, and hygiene sectors. The study estimates a potential market size to be $12 billion over the next 10 years and offers examples of what is -and isn’t - working from around the world show to achieve sustainability and scale.

Publications and papers

The IRC publications and papers include:

• Castresana, Juan Carlos Pérez de Mendiguren (2004). Productive uses of water at the household level: evidence from Bushbuckridge, South Africa, in TP 41, IRC
• Fonseca, Catarina. (2007). Quantifying the cost of delivering of safe water, sanitation and hygiene services: An overview of costs and trends. IRC report prepared for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Unpublished.
• IRC and AguaTuya. 2005. Estudio de caso Asocation de Usarios de agua potable Challacaba. Case study in Spanish with English summary
• IRC and CREPA.2005. Regional Workshops on microfinance in Sub-Saharan Africa, Dakar
• Kouassi-Komlan, Evariste and Fonseca, Catarina. 2004. Microfinance for water and sanitation in Africa. Paper for the 30th WEDC conference
• Moriarty, P. (ed.); Butterworth, J. (ed.) and Koppen, B. van (ed.) (2004). Beyond domestic : case studies on poverty and productive uses of water at the household level. (Technical paper series / IRC; no. 41). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre
• Polak Paul, Deepak Adhikary, Bob Nanes , Dan Salter, and Sudarshan Surwanshi. 2004 Transforming access to rural water into a profitable business, in: Moriarty, P. (ed.); Butterworth, J. (ed.) and Koppen, B. van (ed.) (2004). Beyond domestic : case studies on poverty and productive uses of water at the household level. (Technical paper series / IRC; no. 41). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, http://www.irc.nl/page/6129
• Suominen Arto and Fonseca Catarina. 2006. Community Development Fund: Summary of achievements and disbursement process. Rural Water Supply and Environmental in Amhara Region. Mimeo
• Winrock International, IRC and IWMI. 2008. Report for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Source: Stockholm World Water Week 2009