H&M Foundation
Our partnership
The H&M Foundation is a philanthropic foundation for public good, privately funded by the Stefan Persson family, founders, and main owners of H&M Group. Since 2013, the Foundation has collaborated with us to improve sustainable and inclusive access to WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) for communities around the world.
SusWASH
In 2017, the H&M Foundation donated another AUD9.38 million to our five-year sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene program, SusWASH.
This initiative focused on strengthening the capacity and leadership of governments, civil society, and local service providers, and informing national policy and practice.
In practical terms, this meant working across all levels to improve water and sanitation governance, coordination, planning, monitoring, financing, accountability, and water resource management.
SusWASH took place in four countries: Cambodia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Pakistan.
Collective Impact
In 2020 H&M Foundation launched its new pilot program Collective Impact. By bringing several organisations together in a structured way, using a holistic approach, the aim is to achieve long lasting social change. The Collective Impact approach uses learning and integration as opportunities to build on the collaborating organisations' strengths to achieve greater equity and social inclusion. WaterAid’s strength is to enable the communities with access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene, including menstrual hygiene to greater support other key aspects of developments.
Currently, a long-term Collective Impact approach is piloted in India empowering waste pickers to become integral and recognised members of society and a circular economy. A second pilot is implemented over multiple years in Bangladesh equipping women garment workers for a future defined by automation and digitalization.
For more information on the Collective Impact approach: https://collectiveimpactforum.org/what-is-collective-impact/
Water Life
In 2019 the H&M Foundation supported Ethiopian artist Aida Muluneh's Water Life exhibition, a series of striking images highlighting the reality of living without access to clean water, decent sanitation, and good hygiene, particularly for women and girls.
What our partners say
WaterAid is innovative and ambitious in their aim to create sustainable systemic change, and we are thrilled to be able to support sustainable and inclusive programmes that really make a lasting difference for people.