PepsiCo’s philanthropic arm, the PepsiCo Foundation, and BRAC have announced the culmination of their project to provide clean water access to underserved communities in Bangladesh on the World Water Day.
As part of the initiative, local water entrepreneurs created water treatment plants providing communities with access to safe drinking water at anaffordable price in the disaster-prone areas of Cox’sBazar.The project has now successfully reached more than 13,000 community members and 1,200 underserved households with access to sustainable, affordable clean water.
BRAC’s Senior Director for Communicable Disease, Humanitarian Crisis Management Programme, and Integrated Development Programme, in Bangladesh, Md. Akramul Islam, said,“Clean water is vital to health and wellbeing. We are thrilled with the results of our partnership with the PepsiCo Foundation.”
“As part of our company’s winning with pep+ vision, PepsiCo, through its Foundation, has been actively working on sustainable and scalable solutions for communities across the world to provide access to clean and safe water,” said Debasish Deb, Country Manager, PepsiCo, Bangladesh.
The project was undertaken in Moheshkhali and Kutubdia, sub-districts of Bangladesh where many water sources have levels of arsenic and iron and communities are dependent on shallow wells and ponds, which provide an inadequate supply of safe water. Women and girls especially must travel long distances to collect water, which undermines their economic productivity and ability to stay in school.
The PepsiCo Foundation has helped more than 68 million people gain access to safe water globally since 2006 and aims to reach 100 million people by 2030. Increasing access to safe water is part of PepsiCo’s pep+ agenda to deliver better outcomes for people and the planet, whilst enabling it to be a faster-growing and more resilient company.
