We are pleased to announce that Project Maji has signed a results-based funding agreement with Uptime Catalyst Facility for our operations in Ghana. This partnership marks a significant milestone for our organization as we strive to provide reliable and safe water services to communities in developing countries and supports financial sustainability.
Uptime is a UK-registered charity that provides grant funding to water service providers in developing countries to ensure reliable rural water services. This work is critical in ensuring scalable and sustainable finance of the rural water sector. As it is, low potential for cost recovery hinders private sector involvement. Water revenues rarely cover O&M, let alone cost recovery of hardware – which is typically donor funded. Hence, there is a finance gap to maintain rural water access points. This gap threatens functionality of rural water access points and the availability of safe drinking water across the rural global South. On the contrary, the mobilization of contractually specified performance-based funding will materialize universal access to safe water, truly leaving no one behind.
The agreement with Project Maji will cover all of our managed sites in Ghana ... that is 28 sites at the start of 2023 and we expect a significant growth in the upcoming years. Under the terms of the agreement, Project Maji is required to meet critical key performance indicators in order to receive funding. This includes a 96% uptime, meaning that the proportion of time in a quarter that a waterpoint is functional out of the total time possible. If we meet these targets, a proportion of the gap between the operational costs and the revenue will be bridged by results-based grant payments. Currently. Project Maji operate comfortably within this performance criteria.
To this effect, Project Maji will deliver quarterly reports and ensure consistent maintenance services by our team. We are committed to upholding the high standards set by Uptime and are confident in our ability to deliver reliable and safe water services to the communities we serve.
We are grateful for the opportunity to have been selected for grant-funding by Uptime and are excited to see the positive impact this partnership will have on the communities we serve in Ghana. For more information about Uptime Catalyst Facility, please visit their website at https://www.uptimecatalyst.org.
Thank you for your support and we look forward to continuing to provide safe and reliable water services to communities in need.