In 2023, Gap Inc., Cargill and GSK, in partnership with WaterAid and the Water Resilience Coalition, launched the Women + Water Collaborative, an initiative to improve health, livelihoods and climate resilience in water-stressed communities in India. The Collaborative most recently welcomed The Coca-Cola Foundation as a strategic partner and Levi Strauss & Co. as an associate partner in 2024.
This marks the first time that companies from different sectors spanning apparel, biopharma and agriculture have united with shared goals, metrics and governance to provide access to clean water and sanitation in the same communities.
The Women + Water Collaborative builds on the success of the previous USAID Gap Inc. Women + Water Alliance, founded in 2017 to support communities’ access to clean water and sanitation and to help women gain the skills to manage local water resources sustainably.
Thirty-three percent of India’s population (1.4B) live in water-scarce areas. In the program’s geographic areas, households spend an average of 1.5 hours each day fetching water. As a result, they are missing out on 9% of monthly income potential due to a lack of access to water and sanitation.*
Accessibility to safe, sufficient drinking water affects households in many ways, from health and hygiene practice to economic opportunities. The Collaborative will improve the availability and quality of water in priority river basins through water replenishment and conservation methods such as rainwater harvesting. It will also provide communities with safe drinking water and climate-resilient sanitation and hygiene infrastructure and services.
*Women + Water Alliance baseline assessment.
2,400,000
people empowered to improve their access to clean water and sanitation through the USAID Gap Inc. Women + Water Alliance. The Women + Water Collaborative builds upon that momentum.
3,000
the target number of women the Women + Water Collaborative will empower and engage to become leaders in water, sanitation and hygiene in the first two years of the project.
150,000
people the Women + Water Collaborative is aiming to reach with sustainable, equitable and climate-resilient access to water and sanitation in the first two years of the project.
Women + Water Alliance: At A Glance
Women + Water Alliance: Kusum, a village leader advancing clean water access
Change through collaboration
Image: WaterAid/Srishti Bhardwaj
Image: WaterAid/Srishti Bhardwaj
Image: WaterAid/Srishti Bhardwaj
Image: Gap Inc.
Image: Gap Inc.
About the Water Resilience Coalition
The Water Resilience Coalition is an industry-driven, CEO-led initiative of the CEO Water Mandate that aims to elevate the long-term mounting crisis of global water stress to the top of the corporate agenda and to preserve the world’s freshwater resources through collective action in water-stressed basins and ambitious, quantifiable commitments. Since the Coalition’s launch in 2020, 35 global companies across multiple sectors with a combined market cap of US$4.8 trillion and operations in more than 140 countries have joined the effort.