We can all be, should be, platform builders.

As a communications platform itself, with its growing knowledge base and range of information and advisory services, 300in6 supports the development of platforms of cooperation in scaling-up access to safe water, locally and national. A platform provides the basis for cooperation between professions, programmes and players. The emerging platform in Malawi, much facilitated by 300in6, is an example.

Our policy guidelines for platform building and operation state:

• “In the world of safe water, the building of a platform is an essential practice, indeed our second nature.
• At the wellhead, one builds a platform. To secure the pump, one builds a platform. To stabilise equipment in the lab, the kiosk, the kitchen, the maintenance shed, build a platform. To create space for all sectors to contribute their special skills, build a platform.
• In the words of the proverb “Walk alone and you will go faster, walk together and we shall go further”. And so, in the world of safe water, with its amazingly unfulfilled goals, the analogy of cooperation through platforms is also an essential practice.
• Some approach safe water as a duty, others as a scientific challenge, others as a business opportunity, yet again others as the basis for the elimination of extreme poverty. We all approach it as a right, as the most natural thing in the world.
• No one alone can bring all the required knowledge and resources to the process. Such is the diversity of knowledge and professions in ensuring safe water for all that a creative, welcoming space is needed for skills and interests to converge. A platform.
• As a communications platform itself, with its growing knowledge base and range of information and advisory services, 300in6 supports the development of platforms of cooperation in scaling-up access to safe water, locally and national. They provide the opportunity for plugging in all the players properly.”

 

See: Safe water access: Stepping up to the power of platforms 300in6 Platforms Paper January 2012

The national platform for HWTS in Malawi is featured in the video ‘When WHEN came home’, and in Upscale 3.

Platform building is featured in the video ‘The change waiting at Platform 1’.