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“My message to you is innovation doesn’t need to cost more. It’s
a process of overcoming biases, taking time to bring your client onside to show them that they can do things di erently.”
Neeta Pokhrel
Head, Project Administration Unit, South Asia Department; and ADB Very Innovative Person
You can help your client be the rst to make a bold change
The challenge: Arsenic and uoride poisoning from drinking water is a pervasive public health problem in rural and parts of urban India, and traditional interventions aren’t working to overcome it fully.
The innovation: Find the right physical and institutional solution for sustainable, women-led, and smart water services management.
The story: In 2016, while on mission
to West Bengal, India, Neeta Pokhrel saw something very disturbing: a young village boy and his mother, a sh farmer, had scales on their hands, that could only mean one thing: chronic arsenic poisoning.
LPokhrel also met an 18-year-old girl in grade 11 at school, whose studies were hampered by the terrible pains she su ered in her feet, also because of arsenic in her drinking water. The next day, in another district, Pokhrel met a little boy carrying heavy water containers
on his bike to take home to his family. Some days he went to school. Some days he spent doing this.
About 27 million people in India are either su ering from or at risk of arsenic and uoride poisoning from the groundwater. The government of West Bengal was acutely aware of the need to solve these problems. The o cials proposed a $240 million loan from ADB to do what they’ve always done: build a public stand post–based water scheme to shift users away from polluted groundwater.
Pokhrel was dismayed. “Is that all we aspire to?” she asked herself. “I reminded them that if the polluted groundwater supply is even slightly closer to their front door, that’s
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