By Jordan Smoke, Senior Director of WASH, World Vision U.S.
A business plan for global WASH is more than a collection of targets, budgets, and coverage maps. It articulates our choices, clarifies trade-offs, defines non-negotiables, signals where capital will be concentrated, and is the foundation for systems that make performance visible.
World Vision WASH business plans over the last decade have focused on increasing access, driving scale, expanding geographic footprint, and improving implementation consistency. That was necessary. It built technical credibility and grew capacity.
The next phase demands something different.
We are operating in tighter fiscal environments, more fragile contexts, and under greater expectations of sustainability and service reliability. Infrastructure expansion without professional servicing viability is no longer defensible. Static reporting is no longer sufficient. Philanthropic-dependent funding models are no longer scalable.
Our 2026-2030 Global WASH Business Plan, Mapping the Blue Thread, was developed to thrive within those realities.
This business plan re-examines how we structure programs, finance rural water services, and monitor performance and progress. It builds on prior gains in quality and scale, but shifts our priorities toward service-centered models, blended finance, and digital transparency.
Designed like a product, not an administrative plan
This business plan was approached as a product: iterative, user-centered, and built for function — not compliance.
It was built with input from hundreds of leaders across 42 countries. The intent was not uniformity, but alignment without rigidity.
It is entrepreneurial by design.
While participating countries are required to prioritize technical focus areas and operate within clear fundamentals, the plan rewards initiative and local ambition. It creates structure where needed (quality standards, monitoring protocols, financing expectations), while intentionally encouraging innovation and contextualization.
Organized around geography, not projects
One of the most significant structural changes is its organization around geography.
Every country has mapped its strategy to defined operational geographies — districts, watersheds, service areas — to fundamentally reorganize how their planning and approach is conceived.
Geography becomes the unit of:
- Service planning
- Financing strategy
- Integration with other sectors
- Monitoring and performance review
We refer to this organizing logic as the “Blue Thread.” Not as a metaphor alone, but as a structural principle: water forms a continuous spatial and financial network across a community. Water is foundational for transformative progress in every area of development — the blue thread that connects people, places, and progress. If that thread is weak at any point (financing, governance, watershed protection, asset management) then health, education, and economic opportunities for that community will diminish. Strengthening the thread requires aligning capital, data, and accountability around defined geographies.
Blended financing: Moving beyond grant-dependent rural water
The financing gap for WASH is substantial. To address this, our business plan funding strategy explicitly advances blended financing approaches with an emphasis on supporting rural water enterprises and professionalized service providers.
Our strategy includes:
- Structured cost-sharing agreements with governments
- Combining philanthropic capital with concessional lending
- Supporting rural water enterprises to operate on viable service models rather than perpetual subsidy
If rural water services are to be reliable, they must be financed as ongoing utilities, not treated as one-time installations.
This requires shifting from funding projects to financing services.
Philanthropic capital is used to reduce early investment risk, strengthen governance systems, or build enterprise capacity. Together, with Vision Fund International, we have created an equity fund to support this work — Blue Thread Global Water Fund.
Digital monitoring: Geospatial intelligence and real-time visibility
Another major shift is to fully digital monitoring.
Monitoring under this plan is not limited to output verification. It is structured as a performance monitoring system built on geospatial mapping and real-time reporting.
Key elements include:
- Mapping complete water systems — not just sites — including source, treatment, storage, and distribution assets
- Capturing asset-level data (design, materials, useful life, quality assurance/quality control documentation)
- Integrating monitoring data into mWater for centralized visualization
- Transitioning from static reporting to live dashboards
Geospatial analysis enables:
- Clear identification of coverage gaps
- Linking WASH infrastructure to watershed protection
- Transparent communication with stakeholders
Digital monitoring is not an aesthetic choice. It has become our game-changing governance tool.
Designed for lasting impact
Our Global WASH Business Plan is not positioned as a static document. It is a platform — place-based, financially creative, technologically innovative, and built for accountability and impact.
The true test of this strategy will not be how well it reads. It will be whether, five years from now, rural water services are measurably more reliable, sanitation markets are thriving, water sources are protected for generations, philanthropic funds are leveraged, and our progress is more transparent than it is today.
