COVID-19 Water Emergency Response

Overview

In partnership with Business for South Africa, local and provincial authorities and various community based organisations (CBOs), the National Business Initiative has implemented a nationwide emergency water response to combat the coronavirus, focused on supporting effective hand washing in dense informal settlements.

This NBI’s COVID-19 water emergency response focuses on three main technologies:

1. A foot operated public handwashing facility, for use at communal sites such as taxi ranks, schools, informal settlements and clinics
2. A foot operated communal standpipe, for use in rural areas and informal settlements where large numbers of people collect water communally
3. An affordable in-house handwashing unit for use informal settlements

As at the end of 2020, the NBI, with the generous support of AECI, Astron Energy, the Grundfos Foundation and the Netherlands Embassy, has installed over 11 000 handwashing facilities in vulnerable communities across the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng.