The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Lab has commissioned two key sanitation organizations — the Toilet Board Coalition and Water For People — to scale sanitation businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) via the Toilet Board Coalition’s Accelerator.
A quarter of LAC lacks access to safely managed water and sanitation. The objective of the project is to provide entrepreneurial acceleration support to start-ups in the sanitation sector and promote the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the sanitation sector to increase sanitation services in Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru.
Interested companies can apply to participate in the Accelerator before April 28 here.
This support ecosystem will generate an alliance titled “The Toilet Board Coalition - Latin America and The Caribbean,” consisting of large and small businesses, cooperation agents, NGOs, research institutes, and government agencies. The partners of this alliance would share funding, skills, and knowledge to promote sustainable and scalable business models in the sanitation economy.
The project is co-financed by Source of Innovation, an alliance promoted and co-financed by the Water and Sanitation Division of IDB and the IDB Lab, in coordination with the following key partners: the Government of Switzerland, through its State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, FEMSA Foundation, the Government of Israel, and the Government of Korea, through its Ministry of Environment.
The Toilet Board Coalition Accelerator, currently in its eighth year, has scaled 58 sanitation start-ups across 20 countries, impacting more than 2.4 million people daily and unlocking US$22 million in finance. Expanding into LAC, the Accelerator will now also be offered in Spanish.
Through corporate mentorship, business model design and access to investment, small and medium-sized enterprises can fuel crucial innovation in the sector. The Toilet Board Coalition calls for corporates to engage in the first Accelerator of the region to provide capacity-building support to sanitation businesses.
“The Toilet Board Coalition offers engagement opportunities to its 80+ Members from corporates, NGOs, research and government agencies through its Roundtables to catalyze the water, sanitation and hygiene business ecosystem and entrepreneurial support,” said Alexandra Knezovich, managing director of engagement at Toilet Board Coalition. “We are thrilled to now offer a dedicated LAC program, enabling further development of partnerships with corporations through financing, mentoring and connection with their value chain.”
Water For People says that the Accelerator will grow its alumni portfolio to 1,000 businesses by 2030. The outcome of this partnership of 36 months will scale 15 LAC start-ups, of which a minimum of five will be women-led.
