KENYA – Family Bank, a commercial bank, has signed a KSh350 million (US$2.96m) two-year partnership with Aqua for All to facilitate increased lending to medium and small-scale water enterprises supplying low-income communities with safe drinking water.
Aqua for All, a foundation that specializes in innovative finance for water and sanitation, and Family Bank are targeting Community-Based Water Service Providers in order to provide improved access to water to over 280,000 people.
According to Family Bank CEO Rebecca Mbithi, access to affordable credit in the water and sanitation economy remains a challenge.
“As a Bank, we are dedicated to help scale up the financial and operational performance of water service providers and financing initiatives focused on delivering improved water supply and sanitation services to low-income homes,” she said.
“Together with Aqua for All, we will be able to widen our financing pool of service providers and provide access to affordable credit for Water Service Providers that are providing piped and point services in the unserved or underserved populations.”
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) aims at ensuring universal access to safe and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by the year 2030.
However, the UN reports that more than two billion people worldwide lack access to safe water and sanitation.
“We consider Kenya a promising market for water and sanitation investments. However, we need to accelerate progress towards achieving SDG 6,” said Aqua for All’s Managing Director Josien Sluijs.
“This requires supporting scalable solutions and facilitating access to capital by unlocking private investments. Our partnership with Family Bank is an important step towards providing sustainable access to safe water and proper sanitation nationwide.”
This partnership will support MajiPlus, a loan facility from Family Bank that provides flexible financial solutions to individuals, micro-businesses, SMEs and Water Service Providers.
In addition, Family Bank will also offer customers training materials on how to provide financing for climate-resilient projects in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.
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