Our focus

Building business

Local entrepreneurs make long-lasting impact

To improve child health, we strengthen local supply and demand of essential products and services.

Supporting entrepreneurs

To reach the millions who lack water, sanitation, and sufficient, nutritious food and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we need financially viable and innovative models.

That’s why we support sanitation entrepreneurs (men and women building or emptying latrines, handwashing devices), and microentrepreneurs (mostly women), selling health products such as sanitary napkins, soap and micronutrient supplements, and earning commissions on latrine sales.

In turn, these entrepreneurs drive demand. This works. The proof: for every euro we spend on improved sanitation hardware and related services, communities in Bangladesh invest almost six.

Max TapWater

We have set up a social enterprise, Max TapWater, which supplies piped water straight to people’s houses. Only 4.5% of households in rural Bangladesh have a piped water connection, leaving over 100 million people unserved. The need is great, but so is the market opportunity.

Read more here.

Max TapWater our social enterprise spin-off

Our impact in Building business

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Our innovations

Innovation is part of our DNA. We find ways to do good better, for us and others. The Healthy Village approach is not the only example. Here are some others!

Max Payment-by-Results

Shifting away from traditional input-based payments, Max Payment-by-Results (MaxPbR) links payments to our implementation partners to predefined results.

Covid-19 response

COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on life as we know it. It's hit vulnerable communities where we work hard; not only as a health crisis, but also a socio-economic one. Read about our COVID-19 response in Bangladesh here.

Community voices

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A sanitation business woman 

The story of Shahera Khatun Expand article

Shahera Khatun is a single mother of 3 children. She also runs her own sanitation business. It requires hard labour, and is more commonly done by men.

Shahera started small a few years ago, and steadily grew her business. She now has expanded to sell a variety of sanitation and hygiene products.

Last year during COVID-19, her business suffered as people couldn’t afford to invest in sanitation. Luckily business is picking up again.

We are happy to see Shahera’s business grow!