PATH and the Safe Water Project: Empowering the Poor through User-Centered Design

This case provides an overview of the nonprofit organization PATH and its Safe Water Project-a five-year effort launched in late 2006 with $17 million in funding from the global development unit of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The purpose of the grant was to evaluate to what extent market-based approaches could help accelerate the widespread adoption and sustained use of household water treatment and safe storage products by low-income populations. Through a portfolio of field-based pilots, PATH intended to experiment with different sales and distribution strategies to improve consumer access to safe water solutions, such as water filters and chlorine-based water purification tablets. It also planned to test different pricing and consumer financing models to address the affordability of these products. However, extensive market research revealed another problem-few products in the space were both effective and designed specifically to meet the unique needs and preferences of these consumers. Accordingly, PATH applied for and was awarded $7 million in additional grant funding from the Gates Foundation to design a water filter product that would meet high standards of efficacy, be desirable-or aspirational-to low income consumers, and work effectively within the rural conditions where the majority of the poor resided. The PATH team would accomplish this through a process that the organization called user-centered design.

• Process design
• Product development
• Nonprofit organizations
• Software development and engineering
• Corporate social responsibility