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Welcome to The Executive Exchange, a premier podcast series for on-the-go senior executives. Each episode features short, impactful podcasts where industry leaders share key insights and experiences from the water industry.
[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange, 15-minute podcast in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, inform, and educate other water sector leaders from around the globe.
[00:00:10] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark, and for our special 100th episode, our two guests are Helen Puri-Starr and Erik Harvey, both from WaterAid. And the thing we're gonna be talking about today is Project Blueprint which is a game-changing project that will influence the lives of literally millions of people.
[00:00:31] Piers Clark: Helen, Erik, wonderful to have you with us today.
[00:00:33] Erik Harvey: Thank you.
[00:00:34] Helen Puri-Starr: Thank you so much for having us.
[00:00:36] Piers Clark: Well, we always start by trying to learn a little bit about who our podcasters are, so Helen, you're the project lead for Project Blueprint, but tell me a bit about what you did before you got to WaterAid.
[00:00:48] Helen Puri-Starr: I've been in the charity sector my entire career, and I've been part of lots of different fundraising teams, but most recently, my role has essentially been to take really exciting ideas and ambitions from program teams, and turn them into something that really appeals to fundraising audiences, and really ensures they raise the money they deserve.
[00:01:09] Helen Puri-Starr: I was at the British Red Cross where I worked with different international teams in Asia, Middle East, and North Africa. And then to WaterAid where I've worked really closely with the philanthropy and trusts team, Erik, the Nepal team, and lots of others to create the Blueprint.
[00:01:25] Piers Clark: You get to play with the best bits.
[00:01:27] Piers Clark: Now, Erik, you've been a guest on this podcast before, but just give me a little bit about your background.
[00:01:33] Erik Harvey: I currently work as a strategic technical director within the organization. I think I'm in my 25th year in WaterAid now, and have worked from country program level at provincial level in communities, and all the way up through the system into the technical advisory side, et cetera.
[00:01:51] Erik Harvey: So I've had the huge privilege of working across multiple country programs, really beginning to look at how do we drive scale and real impact through our work. And importantly, how do we drive progress towards sustaining that scale and we want to see change happening much faster.
[00:02:08] Erik Harvey: This is a lot of the thinking that has gone into the development of the Blueprint.
[00:02:13] Piers Clark: What caught my attention was the scale of the ambition of what you're trying to achieve, and we do need organizations like WaterAid shooting for the stars.
[00:02:22] Piers Clark: Now, the audience will probably know what WaterAid is and does, but Erik, can you just describe what WaterAid does?
[00:02:31] Erik Harvey: WaterAid was founded in the '80s to support the resolving of the water and sanitation crisis, which unfortunately today still exists at a significant scale.
[00:02:41] Erik Harvey: And so what WaterAid does, working across multiple countries and also through global level and regional level influencing, is focusing on how do we solve these systems-based problems towards getting water and sanitation to everyone. And how do we do that in a way that is equitable and achieves the sustained operation of those services.
[00:03:03] Erik Harvey: This is not just about delivering taps and toilets, this is very much around working alongside national, sub-national, civil society, government, private sector partners on trying to solve for the solutions of the systems-based problems, supporting people to have the basis of which to get themselves out of poverty, and water and sanitation and basic services are critical to that.
[00:03:25] Piers Clark: Excellent. You used a phrase of we wanna make sure that it's equitable. What did you mean by that?
[00:03:31] Erik Harvey: Not everybody has access equally to these services. There are systemic barriers, the cultural barriers, et cetera. So really ensuring that anything that's been designed and developed in terms of delivery of services is taking into account those inequalities or those barriers that some people face in accessing systems.
[00:03:49] Piers Clark: Excellent. Thank you for that.
[00:03:50] Piers Clark: Now, the topic today is the Blueprint project. So let's start with what is the Blueprint?
[00:03:58] Helen Puri-Starr: The Blueprint was born from the idea that even though change is happening to ending the water crisis, it's happening too slowly. And if we want to solve it and everything it underpins, like health, education, gender equality, we need to do more.
[00:04:11] Helen Puri-Starr: So whilst we've seen individual projects being successful, the Blueprint is really about understanding how those projects individually can then multiply to other areas, and success can grow and build on its own. Essentially, a bit of a snowball effect.
[00:04:27] Helen Puri-Starr: To achieve that, we're aiming, over five years, to reach 500,000 people in Madhesh Province in Nepal with clean water, decent toilets, and good hygiene, working with the water utilities in that province.
[00:04:41] Helen Puri-Starr: We're doing that alongside creating a brand-new global taskforce, bringing together not just WaterAid, but other global experts, academic and technical experts, other global organizations to share what they've seen from all their years of experience, and bring that together so that our understanding isn't just based on a single project.
[00:05:01] Helen Puri-Starr: It's based on decades of experience across the sector.
[00:05:05] Piers Clark: And the bit I really like is this is saying , "We're gonna deal with a massive population, half a million people, and change their lives." And we're gonna talk in a minute about the amount of money that's required to resolve that, but once you pin it back to the dollars spent per individual, it's an incredible investment. Incredibly good value.
[00:05:23] Piers Clark: Right. Why did you choose Nepal?
[00:05:25] Helen Puri-Starr: There's a few kind of key reasons. Firstly, WaterAid's been working in Nepal for, I think, over 40 years now, so we have really strong relationships with all levels of stakeholder, which mean we're really a trusted partner which supports us to try new ideas and deliver a project at a really major scale.
[00:05:42] Helen Puri-Starr: We also already have a project in Madhesh Province called the Beacon Project in partnership with Anglian Water. It's gonna be one of the key projects that informs our work. So starting from a really strong foundation means we'll be up and running much quicker, we'll be delivering water, sanitation, and hygiene much quicker, and we'll be learning on the go.
[00:06:04] Piers Clark: Brilliant.
[00:06:05] Piers Clark: Erik, what about your experience? What can you bring there?
[00:06:08] Erik Harvey: The work we've been doing in partnership with Anglian Water, the utility in the district of Lahun has been really groundbreaking in terms of shifting the performance of the delivery of that utility.
[00:06:19] Erik Harvey: So going from two hours of service a day to now 12 hours of service a day, expanding the services, the quality of water improvements, so huge improvements. And the ambition here is to go beyond into nine other utilities operating in the province.
[00:06:34] Erik Harvey: Although we'll deliver the 500,000 people through direct support, the ambition is that we work and convene other actors working in Madhesh province to go beyond that.
The learning and the knowledge we bring together across all these different partners is that hopefully that what we are able to generate together becomes a blueprint, essentially for how we then operate in other contexts and working alongside other utilities and national governments.
[00:07:00] Piers Clark: Excellent. This is around setting something that could be copied all around the world to address the problems.
[00:07:06] Piers Clark: So you mentioned you're doing some work with Anglian Water, the Beacon Project, I think you called it. Tell me a bit more about that.
[00:07:11] Erik Harvey: One of the special factors related to the longstanding and really impactful partnership we have with Anglian Water is that they themselves are really interested in what they call the legacy that grows.
[00:07:25] Erik Harvey: So for them, this is not just about the work that they've been helping us deliver together with the utility in Lahan. It really is around what can that spark into other much greater scale work.
[00:07:37] Erik Harvey: And so this has also been part of the seed of the blueprint.
[00:07:40] Piers Clark: Peter Simpson was the chief executive there and was a very strong advocate for WaterAid, and actually Peter's now retired, and there's new senior management there.
[00:07:49] Piers Clark: And I believe that they've doubled down and confirmed their commitment to this project.
[00:07:54] Erik Harvey: Absolutely. Helen and I actually had the privilege of joining a trip with Mark Thurston, the new CEO.
[00:07:59] Erik Harvey: He really understood the impact that the project was delivering to real people. People like in the Dalit community who now have access to clean water at home, who have access to community-run toilets which are some of the cleanest toilets I've ever seen certainly.
[00:08:15] Piers Clark: Brilliant. And I know from Anglian Water's experience that the benefits they found for their staff being involved in the Beacon Project have been phenomenal.
Now, one of the interesting things was that you mentioned that you're gonna bring in nine different utilities. You're already working with one of them.
[00:08:29] Piers Clark: Do you think there's gonna be any sort of not invented here scenarios or different politics that come and influence it, or do you anticipate those nine utilities will all be chomping at the bit to get involved?
[00:08:40] Erik Harvey: As Helen said earlier, we have very deep and long relationships built in Nepal, and obviously we are not building this out of nothing. We're building this out of those relationships.
[00:08:51] Erik Harvey: Yes, of course, there will be political differences across these nine utilities. They are all in the same province. It is the most populous province in Nepal. But it's all operating under largely one governance system, but yes this work is never straightforward because of politics, because of people. People are different.
[00:09:12] Erik Harvey: One of the key things that I'm hoping that we will learn through this in terms of what are the key enabling factors is how positive reinforcement or incentives can be used to get those different utilities to, for want of a better word, compete with one another for improved service delivery, for improved indicators and KPIs.
[00:09:32] Erik Harvey: So we have experience of doing this in India at actually interestingly a national scale, not through WaterAid, but through other organizations in Ethiopia. We've done work with a partnership with Yorkshire Water supporting five utilities who then went on to support another 20 utilities, and it's a mushrooming self-sustaining model where one utility supports another to improve, but ultimately it becomes almost a competition for whose non-revenue water is better.
[00:10:00] Piers Clark: Gamifying the whole water improvement sector. That's the way to do it.
[00:10:04] Piers Clark: Now Helen, talk me through what do you need to make this happen, half a million people improve their water and sanitation services?
[00:10:11] Helen Puri-Starr: The Blueprint is looking to raise £16.4 million over five years to deliver the project which I think on the surface is a bit of gasp figure. But even if we take the creation of this bigger model for change out of the equation, and we're just looking at reaching those half a million people, that's less than £33 per person.
[00:10:33] Helen Puri-Starr: And as we've said, it's for all those things that can then follow it, like resilience to climate change, access to education, gender equality. So, on the surface it's a huge figure, but we know it's about changing lives.
[00:10:45] Piers Clark: The incredible thing here is it's not £33 every year. It's £33 spent once to create infrastructure and learning that will last a generation.
[00:10:56] Piers Clark: Now, you can't go from nothing to 16 million in one go, so how are you gonna go about this problem?
[00:11:02] Helen Puri-Starr: You're right, it's a process to get there. So to start with, we want to raise £4 million, which is our foundation funding to get the project off the ground and start work.
[00:11:13] Helen Puri-Starr: And to do that, we're looking for a collective of change-makers, seed funders who want to give £250,000 or more to really get this project going.
[00:11:25] Helen Puri-Starr: And I think what's amazing about the Blueprint is you will be seeing that immediate impact from your funding, people being reached with water sanitation and hygiene, but you also know you're contributing to a blueprint which is going to change the entire course of the water crisis.
[00:11:40] Piers Clark: Helen, how confident are you that you're going to get those 16 million to start this up?
[00:11:45] Helen Puri-Starr: I feel really confident that we can get to the 16.4 million. I think what's really key to say is this is a strategic priority for WaterAid, and when I'm saying WaterAid, I don't just mean WaterAid UK, but across the federation.
[00:11:58] Helen Puri-Starr: So this isn't just about raising money from UK-based philanthropists. We want a group of global philanthropists who are coming together to be those seed funders.
[00:12:07] Helen Puri-Starr: It's a big ask, and it's really ambitious, but as we said right at the start, we're never gonna solve the water crisis if we don't put those ambitions in place.
[00:12:16] Piers Clark: Is it conceivable that maybe someone's listening to this who's in a utility and thinks, "Man, this is a brilliant project. I don't happen to have quarter of a million dollars sitting in my pocket, but I could mobilize my organization to raise that money over the next one, two, three years" is that even possible?
[00:12:33] Helen Puri-Starr: The very short answer to that is yes, absolutely. Obviously when we designed this, we were definitely thinking about, okay, fundraising from philanthropists, and it's a huge area of growth. But individuals aren't the only people who want to change the systems in the world, and challenge injustices, and solve the water crisis.
[00:12:51] Helen Puri-Starr: So foundations, organizations, anyone who sees themself as that kind of change maker could definitely be part of the Blueprint and part of that change.
[00:13:01] Piers Clark: I wish you the very best in that, and if there's anyone listening to this and you want to be one of those change-making philanthropists who kick-starts this, let me know, or connect directly to Helen and Erik through the WaterAid website.
[00:13:15] Piers Clark: Now, we're running out of time, let's go forward 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, take your pick. What do you hope will have been achieved here?
[00:13:24] Erik Harvey: The boring answer might be talking about 500,000 people receiving regular sustainable access. But I think for me, I'm thinking bigger.
[00:13:32] Erik Harvey: I'm thinking that we would have triggered the organizations that would be participating in generating the knowledge, bringing everything together, adopting the blueprint in their work, and delivering the same level of ambition and scale in their work. For me, that's the critical factor.
[00:13:48] Erik Harvey: The size of the water and sanitation crisis is so big we can't be doing it alone. It is about bringing people together and finding common solutions. Yes, the blueprint will not be static. It's not like a once-off print. We produce it, it triggers change, and it evolves as we learn through implementation in other and newer contexts.
[00:14:08] Piers Clark: Thank you, Erik.
[00:14:08] Piers Clark: Now Helen, what's your vision for the future if this project's successful?
[00:14:13] Helen Puri-Starr: Erik obviously took the best answer, so I'll go with the next one, which is to change the world you need lots of change makers involved.
[00:14:21] Helen Puri-Starr: So I guess as a fundraiser, and from the fundraising perspective, my ambition in those five, 10 years down the line is that we've got a group of philanthropists, organizations, foundations who, yes, have given to the Blueprint and made it possible, but from that have stayed really engaged with the sector, with WaterAid, to continue engaging in further change, and really believe in what they can achieve with their funding, and the impact they can have.
[00:14:47] Piers Clark: You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me, Piers Clark, and my two guests today for this 100th special episode have been Helen Puri-Starr and Erik Harvey, both from WaterAid. And we've been talking about the incredible, ambitious, game-changing project called Blueprint that WaterAid is progressing.
[00:15:08] Piers Clark: Thank you to our sponsors, and until next time, keep asking questions, keep sharing, and keep safe.