Ashoka’s Global Water Innovations Initiative is a year-long collaboration of Ashoka Fellows from different regions of the world who all work on issues of water and sanitation. The work includes a series of regional initiatives with Ashoka Fellows sharing ideas, hatching new insights, and building active collaborations. Our Southern Africa Initiative was launched in March 2008 in South Africa, and will be followed by similar initiatives in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa during 2008.

Based on the work of 7 Ashoka Fellows from South Africa, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Nigeria, Ashoka’s Southern Africa Water Innovations Initiative took place at Tlholego Eco-Village in South Africa on March 11-13, 2008. In this initiative, Fellows explored those "A-ha!" moments of inspiration in their work--the insights they had that vastly expanded their impact and changed the scope of their idea. Ashoka’s work is getting the voices of those people at the ends of the pipes to the people building the pipes--linking Ashoka Fellows with other stakeholders such as business people, UN and World Bank representatives, and government leaders--to share their innovative ideas and change the way water and sanitation are managed. Working together, Fellows can vastly expand their impact.

From David Kuria, a Kenyan Fellow building sanitation mechanisms in the slums of Kibera, to Joseph Adelegan, a Nigerian Fellow turning slaughterhouse waste into biogas, to Kim Kieser, a South African Fellow leading a nation-wide effort to clean up the rivers and implement recycling programs, we're sharing the insights of Fellows at the cutting edge of their fields and sparking new collaborations across sectors and borders.

In partnership with UN Foundation's Global Water Challenge, Ashoka has launched an online competition through our Changemakers.net program, "Tapping Local Innovation: Unclogging the Water and Sanitation Crisis."