Hot off the Press — Low-Cost Technology for Safe Drinking Water

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Published on September 18, 2026

A new Value for Money evaluation has been published by Grand Challenges Canada regarding the Safe Water Optimization Tool (SWOT). The SWOT is a low-cost digital platform developed by the Dahdaleh Institute, in partnership with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), to improve access to safe drinking water in humanitarian settings. The tool uses advanced modelling to unlock operational insights from routine monitoring data, helping to ensure water remains safe until the point of consumption by balancing public health protection with user acceptability.

The SWOT focuses on the challenges of waterborne disease and water quality across refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) settlements, where previously safe water can become re-contaminated. The SWOT has been deployed at more than 70 sites, across 16 countries, by a dozen humanitarian organizations, reaching more than 800,000 people with optimized water systems. Evidence from an IDP camp in Northwest Nigeria and a recent evaluation in rural Yemen showed close to 100% household safe water coverage when SWOT guidelines were followed.

In the report, the tool was evaluated against five ‘Value for Money’ criteria: economy, efficiency, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and sustainability at scale, and gender equality and social inclusion. The SWOT demonstrates good value for money by its achievement of a ‘good’ rating across four of the five criteria (the SWOT scored ‘adequate’ on gender and social inclusion highlighting an important area for improvement). Evidence from pilot projects suggest the SWOT provides water quality improvements at a low cost and strengthens outcomes efficiently within existing water, sanitation, and hygiene budgets when incorporated into monitoring systems. SWOT increases safe water access through effective chlorine protection, while its country-level partnerships, non-profit scaling model, and sector-wide advocacy support replicable and sustainable benefits.

For more information on the case study, find the full report here: https://humanitariangrandchallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GCC-VfM-case-study-SWOT_Final-June-202654.pdf

Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research. (2026). Low-cost technology for safe drinking water (By Grand Challenges Canada). https://humanitariangrandchallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GCC-VfM-case-study-SWOT_Final-June-202654.pdf

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