Safe water is a public good with enormous positive externalities for health, education, and economic productivity. Yet water utilities are chronically underfunded because water is politically difficult to commodify — governments are reluctant to price water at true cost, and international donors have shifted capital to more visible interventions.

2 billion people drink unsafe water, water-borne disease kills more children than malaria and measles combined, and women and girls spend 200 million hours per day collecting water rather than attending school. The infrastructure deficit is structural: water systems require continuous investment for maintenance and replacement, yet the financing mechanisms are broken.