Turning the Tide: Clean Water for All in Khulna’s Hardest-to-Reach Communities

Why This Matters: A Climate Crisis Meets Urban Poverty

Bangladesh—one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries—is experiencing a dramatic influx of climate migrants from rural areas. Many settle in Khulna's slums like Bastuhara (1,628 households) and Rupshar Char (1,157 households), where:

• 89% of Khulna slum households face seasonal water scarcity due to climate-induced groundwater depletion.

• Only 6–10 liters of water are used daily by nearly half the population—far below the minimum human requirement.

• Nearly 40% of water at point-of-use is contaminated with fecal coliform, putting lives at risk.

Drinkwell, in partnership with UNICEF Bangladesh, Khulna WASA, and the Khulna City Corporation (KCC), proudly inaugurated two climate-resilient Water ATMs on July 1, 2025—located at Bastuhara Colony Bazar and Rupsha Natun Bazar Char Masjid. In Khulna:

“This isn't just about water—it's about restoring dignity, resilience, and rights to climate-affected families who’ve long been left behind.” — Minhaj Chowdhury, CEO, Drinkwell

The Drinkwell Solution: Technology + Equity

The newly launched Water ATMs are piloting a cross-subsidy social business model that combines several innovative elements:

• Cross-subsidized Tariff Model: Developing a cross-subsidy business model that will ensure the long-term operation and maintenance of the ATMs, with UNICEF providing initial capital expenditure and two years of operational costs. The goal is for the system to become self-sustaining and expand over time to cover entire slum communities. The cross-subsidy model guarantees free water to at least 100 ultra poor households (100*20 = 2000 L/day) with the assumption that sufficient low to middle-income households will pay a marginally higher tariff to offset the loss of revenue from the free water being provided to the ultra-poor.

• Advanced Treatment Facilities: Ensuring the highest standards of water quality, free from contaminants like fecal coliform.

• Inclusive Design: Water ATMs are designed to be accessible for everyone, including individuals with disabilities and children.

• Community Empowerment: Raising awareness among 2,785 households about the benefits of safe water and the Water ATM technology, aiming for a 70-80% conversion rate to ATM cardholders.

• Emergency Protocols: Recognizing Khulna's vulnerability, the business plan includes robust emergency protocols to ensure water access even during disasters.

• Behavior Change Workshops: Training for women, youth, and climate migrants on water hygiene

These Water ATMs provide safe, year-round, contamination-free water within walking distance for slum residents—an essential safeguard as groundwater depletion and infrastructure collapse become more frequent under climate stress.

Impact Targets

• ✅ 2,785+ low-income households gain reliable safe water

• ✅ 100+ ultra-poor families receive free daily water

• ✅ Significant reduction in waterborne illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, jaundice

• ✅ Women and girls save time collecting water—reclaiming hours every day

Drinkwell @ 2024 World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Meetings

Drinkwell CEO Minhaj Chowdhury participated in a panel titled “Investing in Entrepreneurs in Frontier Markets” with the following participants:

• Moderator Mirek Dušek - Managing Director, World Economic Forum

• Julieta Valls Noyes - Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, US Department of State

• Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade - Senior Vice President, African Development Bank Group

• Mihir Shah - Founder and CEO, UE Lifesciences

The global risks posed by health inequity, food insecurity, energy access, climate change and protracted crises are growing at an exponential rate, resulting in severe hardships for marginalized populations.

What are some of the market-driven solutions that can complement traditional humanitarian approaches and make a long-term difference for vulnerable communities in frontier markets?

Watch the recording here: https://www.weforum.org/events/sustainable-development-impact-meetings-2024/sessions/investing-in-entrepreneurs-in-frontier-markets/

Drinkwell signs MoU with Khulna WASA

We are thrilled to announce that we have signed an MOU with Khulna Water Supply & Sewerage Authority (KWASA) to deploy Drinkwell Water ATMs throughout the city, providing safe and affordable drinking water to its residents.

We are grateful to Khulna WASA Managing Director Md. Abdullah P Eng. for his trust in partnering with Drinkwell to provide safe drinking water to those who live “beyond the pipe” and lack access to safe drinking water.

Drinkwell signs MoU with Narayanganj City Corporation

We are thrilled to announce that we have signed an MOU with the Narayanganj City Corporation to deploy Drinkwell Water ATMs throughout the city, providing safe and affordable drinking water to its residents.

We are grateful to the Honorable Mayor Selina Hayat Ivy Apa, CEO Mr. Shahidul Islam, and Water Supply Executive Engineer Masud Parvaz Bhai for their support and partnership in this endeavor. With their help, Drinkwell is expanding our footprint in Bangladesh, following successful deployments with Dhaka WASA, Chattagram WASA, and Rajshahi City Corporation.

Access to safe drinking water is a basic human right, and we are proud to play our part in making it a reality for more people in Narayanganj. We look forward to serving the people of Narayanganj and working with the City Corporation to provide access to clean drinking water for all.

Drinkwell receives 2022 US Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence

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Drinkwell Bangladesh, a US company providing safe and affordable water directly to residents of densely packed neighbourhoods in Dhaka, has received the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) 2022 in the climate resilience category.

"Drinkwell is building resilience to climate change in Bangladesh, where only about a third of the population has access to safe drinking water. That's critical for avoiding serious waterborne illnesses like cholera and typhoid fever," Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose W Fernandez said at the award ceremony in Washington DC early Saturday.

"As climate change warms our planet, droughts and rising sea levels are making clean water even scarcer, drying up some sources and contaminating other sources with seawater. So one of Drinkwell's founders developed a water purification system that's cheaper and that's more efficient. And it's easier to operate than other models."

"The company has also created a new delivery method, ATM – ATM-style machines – that sell and dispense clean water in Bangladesh and are more accessible for people whose homes aren't connected to water pipes," the under secretary of state said.

"For about eight years, since 2015, Drinkwell has created hundreds of jobs for people in Bangladesh and brought almost 200 million gallons of clean water to low-income communities in Dhaka, enough drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people a year."

"Drinkwell is also a testament to the power of international exchanges. And one of the company's founders is a Bangladeshi American whose grandfather died of a waterborne illness," Fernandez said.

"He – so he got a Fulbright – he got a Fulbright to study the problem and potential solutions to Bangladesh, and there he met a chemical engineering professor from an American university, and together the two of them went on to found Drinkwell."

Earlier, the US Department of State's Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs announced four winners for this year's edition of the ACE award in the responsible business operations, climate resilience, and inclusive economic growth categories. The other winners of the award are Anova Indonesia, Gap India, and Intel Costa Rica.

Established in 1999, the ACE recognises the crucial role US companies are playing in elevating higher standards of business conduct. Together, these companies are leading the way in addressing some of the greatest global challenges.

Water in Bangladesh is either unsafe or pricey | The Economist

But there is a new set of ideas to fix an old problem

Bangladesh, which sits within the world’s largest river delta, has no shortage of water. Alas, barely any of it is drinkable. Much of the country’s surface water contains high levels of poisonous arsenic, owing to both man-made and natural causes. The effects of climate change increasingly sully the rest with salt, even in wells dug deep. As cyclones and tidal surges from the Bay of Bengal intensify, sea water fills the delta. Salt-ridden soil makes growing rice impossible, forcing Bangladeshis to abandon low-lying regions—home to a quarter of the country’s 170m people—in favour of more fertile areas or cities.

Too much salt is as bad for humans as it is for crops. It causes hypertension, raising the risk of strokes, heart attacks and miscarriages. Those who remain on the coast collect rainwater to drink and cook with. This is hard in the dry season, says Shikha Rani Mala, who lives in Morrelganj, in the coastal district of Bagerhat. A nearby pond offers a substitute for rain, she says, but quickly becomes stagnant. This is when Ms Mala turns to one of the many vendors who travel around peddling pricey bottled water from cycle rickshaws.

Various groups are trying to fix this state of affairs. The Department of Public Health Engineering (dphe), a government agency responsible for managing water infrastructure outside big cities, has bought expensive new nanofiltration machines, which use a membrane to remove most organic matter, bacteria, viruses and salts. It is trying them out in three districts, including Bagerhat, and providing the water, for now, without charge. Brac, Bangladesh’s biggest ngo, has teamed up with a Welsh business, Hydro, to install equipment that purifies water using a process called electrocoagulation. The machines cost about the same as those used by dphe, but treat water twice as fast. This allows Brac to sell the water at the relatively affordable rate of ten taka ($0.12) for 20 litres. Yet even where water can be cleaned cheaply, middlemen like Ms Mala’s rickshaw vendor end up as distributors, pushing up prices by as much as 250%.

Nor is access to clean water guaranteed for the 300,000 to 400,000 migrants who move to Dhaka, the capital, each year. Some 4m of the city’s 18m residents, mostly in the slum districts, do not have piped connections to their homes. Most still pay a premium to the city’s water mafia for illegally tapped water, which is often contaminated in the process.

Minhaj Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-American entrepreneur, thinks he has found a way to cut out unscrupulous middlemen. His company, Drinkwell, works with state water utilities in Dhaka and Chattogram (formerly Chittagong) but sells directly to consumers using vending machines and a pay-as-you-go card system for between $0.09 and $0.14 a litre. The utilities provide the untreated water, the land and the electricity, but “we do everything else,” says Mr Chowdhury, including purifying the water. A bigger prize than keeping costs low, however, is ensuring the long-term sustainability of the system. Many worthy attempts to provide cheap, clean water eventually run out of funding. Drinkwell’s profit-based model and tie-ups with utilities should help make its operation pay for itself.

It will be a while before Drinkwell’s success in the cities can be applied to places like Morrelganj. Half of all water-treatment projects fail because, whether set up by the government or an ngo, “the running and maintenance are then left to fall on the community”, says Saifur Rahman of dphe. The costs are usually too high. Local governments are supposed to provide water to rural areas. Often they do not. Mr Rahman and his colleagues are in the process of reminding elected officials—most of whom live in Dhaka and rarely visit their rural constituencies—that this is their job.

Building smarter water partnerships | World Bank Water Blog

Can smart philanthropy catalyze public-private partnerships that balance long-term financial sustainability with the holy grail of “leaving no one behind”? Do partnerships spawned by subsidies only prolong schemes that ultimately benefit the middle class and limit the space for new models to emerge? How can such partnerships address the gender gap in water-related employment? These were just three of the many important questions raised at the recent 2019 Stockholm World Water Week with its theme of ‘Water for Society: Including All.’

The Imagine H2O Urban Water Challenge, founded by Bluewater and 11th Hour Racing, is a global innovation competition that galvanizes fresh approaches into such areas. It does this by operating in the space between startups with innovative solutions to urban water, and the stakeholders with the convening power and resources to scale such solutions. The program rewards innovative water technologies in new markets with deployment-focused funding that can create the proof points to incentivize wider adoption and, in doing so, help transform the sector.

Last year, Imagine H2O connected inaugural Urban Water Challenge Winner Drinkwell with the World Bank’s Water Global Practice. Drinkwell is a social enterprise I co-founded that deploys and maintains water kiosks consisting of novel filtration technology and prepaid water meters as a service.

Our pitch was simple – private operators focused on ensuring safe water supply in urban communities can only achieve the scale they want, and that the SDGs demand of us, if they work with utilities, not against them. By working in concert with the government, we avoid overlapping infrastructure investments in the same communities. We align on a co-financed strategy jointly owned by the utility and ourselves in deploying community-scale water filtration systems to provide safe water for those who live beyond the pipe – that is to say, those underserved communities who can be so hard to reach.

Drinkwell provides the filtration technology and prepaid water meters  (“Water ATM Booths”) to utilities at no cost, which we then operate and maintain as a service. Utilities in turn provide system housing, land, water and electricity to ensure proper operation and maintenance of the Water ATM Booths by us. We create jobs by employing local members of the community who guide end users through the process of registering for and topping up Water ATM cards that enable the purchase of water in a metered, pay-as-you go manner. We prefer to hire women for such roles as women are typically the key decision makers when it comes to sourcing and using water for household purposes. The price per liter is set by the utility as a control against commercially-biased pricing, with a follow-on revenue share or offtake agreement based on end user willingness to pay, the utility’s balance sheet, and project financing sources.

This model has been deployed over 100 times with the Dhaka Water Supply & Sewerage Authority. This means there are more than 100 Water ATM Booths across the capital city of Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, where citizens access clean water at an affordable price. Thanks to the Urban Water Challenge, this model is now expanding to Chittagong, Bangladesh’s second largest city and home to four million people.

This model has attracted private sector investment from Danone Communities, the social investment arm of Danone, as well as the Global Innovation Fund in partnership with Unilever, all of whom are providing marketing, branding and business building support as we work with utilities to provide safe water to those who live beyond the pipe.

The World Bank’s ability to convene and connect us with both clients such as Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority as well as the Bank’s in country operational teams across Bangladesh and India have shown a commitment to do what others rarely do – walk the talk when it comes to spurring innovation and prioritizing the risky work of experimenting in new business models on top of existing priorities and commitments. We were delighted with the speed at which the Water Practice moved to advocate for the adoption of our model to its client in Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, as well as how engaged the in-country teams were across all levels. From the India Country Director to Bangladesh Water & Sanitation Specialist, the rich discussions we had with the Bank’s country teams provided important inputs to critical questions. For example, these discussions highlighted the need to structure incentives around subsidies to avoid the problem of privileging the middle-class and to ensure the model serves the needs of low-income communities. The discussions also helped us develop strategies for building an operating model capable of being scaled across the Bank’s global portfolio.

On-going discussions with the Bank’s in-country teams are highlighting findings from groundbreaking reports recently published by the Bank around the importance of having Women in Water Utilities as well as the Invisible Water Crisis and the impact water quality has on the health and economic growth of communities.

In July, the World Bank provided a $100 million loan to 30 municipalities across Bangladesh for improving water and sanitation services to 600,000 people. We couldn’t be more excited about the potential for our model to contribute to this important work.

As we now “graduate” from philanthropy to scaling this model via investment, we wish this year’s Urban Water Challenge winners the best of luck as they embark on their own scaling journeys. All of us at Drinkwell will always remember the role smart philanthropy had in this journey. We look forward to both strengthening our existing partnerships and forging new ones as we unite as a sector to ensure that when it comes to safe water, no one is left behind.