IMPROVE INTERNATIONAL INC

Our vision is a world where all people have high quality water and sanitation services, not just for life, but for generations. To accomplish our mission, Improve International will redefine the problem, make evidence un-ignorable, and engage decision-makers. 2015 marks the final year for the Millennium Development Goals. Is it a time for celebration? We think not. Some claim we have reached the goal for water, but still lag on the sanitation goal. Whatever the case, millions of people in developing countries still lack access to safe and reliable water and sanitation services. Improve International believes this is due in part to the international development sector's focus on providing access to water and sanitation (pumps and pits) instead of facilitating ongoing services. This leads to poor planning, myopic implementation and inadequate follow up as systems fail over time. Inaccessible information about these failures perpetuates poor practices. Improve International sees the real crisis as one of long-term ineffectiveness of approaches. This is because poor implementation actually causes harm to those we are seeking to help. In international development, one root cause of failure is that program approaches are often dictated by arbitrary donor requirements such as time frames, measurements of success, types of activities, and how much can be spent on “overhead”. Donors have all the power: nonprofits rely on donors to exist and might not be able to influence donors.