Harvard Case Study Looks at PSI Safe Water

BOSTON, Massachusetts, April 25, 2006 — Harvard Business School has published a case study on PSI’s struggles to obtain funding for its point-of-use water purification program in 21 countries. This marks the third HBS case study to focus on PSI programs in the last five months. The case study, entitled “PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water,” is described by Harvard Business Online like this:

“Senior management at PSI — arguably the world's largest and most successful social marketer with impressive achievements in the field of family planning, HIV/AIDS, and malaria prevention — must determine what to do about their slow-to-take-off clean water initiative. PSI's point-of-use products offered effective protection against water-borne diseases, especially diarrhea, yet the organization found it hard to attract donor funds to sustain the initiative. Its managers must determine how to alter their strategy going forward.”

In the case study, PSI Senior Vice President Sally Cowal, who has responsibility for the water initiative, reflects on the fact that some donors do not support point-of-use solutions because they believe the appropriate answer is civil engineering projects to pipe in clean water. “But the reality is that it would take about $80 billion per year to pipe in clean water to the homes of millions with such access, and years to build the pipes and wells,” she says in the case study. “We can deliver cheap, clean water now to prevent illness tomorrow. We have a solution!”

In 2006, PSI treated over 8.6 billion liters of drinking water, averting 4.1 million cases of severe diarrhea and saving the lives of an estimated 6,000 children through its safe water programs. In addition, PSI saved the lives of an estimated 4,100 children through its oral rehydration salt programs.

The case study was written by Professors V. Kasturi Rangan and Nava Ashraf and Research Associate Marie Bell. The case study notes that "Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management."

The case study can be ordered from Harvard Business Online.

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