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Speaker 1: As inconceivable as it may seem to many of us. Today,

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Speaker 1: there are seven hundred and seventy one million people around

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Speaker 1: the world living without access to safe, clean water. That's

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Speaker 1: more than twice the population of the United States, are

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Speaker 1: about one in ten people on our planet, and this

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Speaker 1: isn't just an issue in the developing world. It's also

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Speaker 1: a crisis here in America, where people in communities like Flint, Michigan,

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Speaker 1: and Newark, New Jersey, have learned in recent years that

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Speaker 1: the water they used to cook, drink, and bathe is toxic.

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Speaker 1: Beyond the obvious health impacts, the challenges this presents around

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Speaker 1: economic opportunity, education, and gender equality are astounding, and the

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Speaker 1: reality of climate change only makes the question of water

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Speaker 1: equity more dawning. So why am I telling you this?

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Speaker 1: Because humanity can't truly solve the challenges or seize the

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Speaker 1: opportunities in front of us unless all of us have

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Speaker 1: safe access to the life's most fundamental resource. Today, I'm

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Speaker 1: glad to be joined by two people determined to make

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Speaker 1: that a reality, and I was fortunate enough to be

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Speaker 1: present for the first meeting over a decade ago between

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Speaker 1: this unlikely pair who together have helped to transform millions

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Speaker 1: of lives. At the Clinton Global Initiative in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight, Matt Damon, actor, producer and screenwriter who channeled

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Speaker 1: his fashion for water security and did the charity H

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Speaker 1: two oh Africa, bonded with Gary White, a water and

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Speaker 1: sanitation engineer with years of on the ground expertise. Before long,

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Speaker 1: they had merged their efforts into what came to be

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Speaker 1: called water dot Org. They later started a second organization,

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Speaker 1: of Water Equity, and together they've helped more than forty

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Speaker 1: three million people gain access to clean water. Their new book,

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Speaker 1: The Worth of Water chronicles their efforts and outlines how

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Speaker 1: solving the water crisis is possible within our lifetimes. Matt, Gary,

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Speaker 1: thanks so much for being here today. Thank you for

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Speaker 1: having us appreciate it. As I said, I was there

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Speaker 1: for your first meeting at the Clinton Global Initiative in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. Since then, you have helped transform

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Speaker 1: the lives of more than forty million people around the

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Speaker 1: world through safe water and sanitation. UH for each of you,

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Speaker 1: what led you to focus on water and what makes

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Speaker 1: your partnership effective? Well, I can jump in first and

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Speaker 1: again thanks for for having us here, President Clinton, and

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Speaker 1: for you know, elevating this cause among all the many

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Speaker 1: listeners of your podcast. I think for me, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I I got drawn to water when I was still

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Speaker 1: an undergrad in civil engineering, and I found that I

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Speaker 1: also had this drive. It was instilled in me by

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Speaker 1: my parents to kind of get back to the world.

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Speaker 1: And for me, this was the perfect intersection of what

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Speaker 1: I thought was one of the world's greatest needs and

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Speaker 1: what I saw is my passion and that's what really

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Speaker 1: led me into this. And I think that the reason

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Speaker 1: is that beyond that is that, you know, it is

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Speaker 1: just unconscionable that we should have come so far as

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Speaker 1: a planet and as society. Uh, and yet there's still

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Speaker 1: seven one million of us who can't take that safe

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Speaker 1: drink of water every day. And for us, we take

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Speaker 1: it for granted. For them, it's a matter of life

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Speaker 1: and death, and it robs them of not just their health,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes it robs them of their children and the

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Speaker 1: lives three thousand children whose lives will be lost this

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Speaker 1: year because of unsafe water. It also keeps girls out

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Speaker 1: of school because they're fetching water hours each day. It

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Speaker 1: also really is coming home to roost and form of

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Speaker 1: climate people who have the most tenuous access to water

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Speaker 1: right now, some of the people were trying to help

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Speaker 1: are the ones who are going to lose it because

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Speaker 1: of the droughts that are coming and they are already

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Speaker 1: being experienced. We see climate refugees and talk about that

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Speaker 1: regularly now, but we're really talking about is water refugees,

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Speaker 1: because that's what's driving people to move. So it just

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Speaker 1: cuts across so many different facets of economic development. And

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Speaker 1: that's what, you know, really drew me into this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for me, I, I I just was astonished when I

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Speaker 1: started looking at some of these issues of extreme poverty,

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Speaker 1: how water underpinned all of them, you know, And I

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Speaker 1: just felt so I couldn't believe it, as you know,

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Speaker 1: as somebody who grew up with as as as as

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Speaker 1: most of us do with with such access and water

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Speaker 1: is in such abundance, we can get a clean drink

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Speaker 1: of water in the kitchen and the bathroom anywhere. Um. I,

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Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe the extent to which it affected

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Speaker 1: the lives of so many people. And and there's another

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Speaker 1: thing that you know, besides the senseless death and the

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Speaker 1: needless death, and and you know, three d thousand kids

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Speaker 1: under the age of five every year. They're The very

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Speaker 1: first person who opened my eyes to this was a

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Speaker 1: girl that I went on my first water collection with

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Speaker 1: in Zambia and about fifteen years ago, and I was

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Speaker 1: waiting for it. She came home from school and we

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Speaker 1: walked together to this well, which is about a mile

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Speaker 1: away from her from her home and and in the

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Speaker 1: course of this, it was just she and I and

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Speaker 1: an interpreter, and I kind of started asking her questions

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Speaker 1: about her life and came to find out you know,

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Speaker 1: I said, well, what do you do you want to

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Speaker 1: live here the rest of your life. We're in a

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Speaker 1: very rural area in Zambia, you know, in a village.

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Speaker 1: And she looked at me said no, I'm not gonna

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Speaker 1: live here. I'm gonna she said, I'm going to the

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Speaker 1: big city. I'm going to Lusaka and I'm gonna be

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Speaker 1: a nurse. And I there was some about the way

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Speaker 1: she said it. I I just it reminded me of

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Speaker 1: being fourteen and saying Ben Affleck and I are going

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Speaker 1: to the big city of New York and we're going

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Speaker 1: to be actors, and like that's what a fourteen year

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Speaker 1: old should be doing, right, they should be looking at

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Speaker 1: the potential of their life and and and thinking about

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Speaker 1: these dreams and trying to figure out how to live

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Speaker 1: them out. And it wasn't until I left and was

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Speaker 1: driving away because I had a really nice connection with

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Speaker 1: this kid, and and as I drove away, it hit me,

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Speaker 1: you know, had someone not had the foresight to sink

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Speaker 1: the boorwell, you know, a mile from her house, we

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have been having that conversation because she wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: in school. She would be spending her entire day, you know,

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Speaker 1: trying to fetch water, trying to collect water for her family,

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Speaker 1: and she would have no hope or no no, no

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Speaker 1: dream of someday contributing to the economic engine of Zambia,

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Speaker 1: of her country, and making a life for herself and

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Speaker 1: helping other people and contributing to the community and all

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Speaker 1: of those things. So there's that other piece of it,

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Speaker 1: which is the opportunity cost and what we lose as

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Speaker 1: human beings when when people's ability to achieve what they

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Speaker 1: can achieve and live out their their to their full potential,

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Speaker 1: um when they're not able to realize that and that,

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Speaker 1: the damage to all of us is really incalculable. I

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Speaker 1: remember when the government of Columbia was given a lot

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Speaker 1: of aid to help move people away from narco trafficking.

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Speaker 1: They had some infrastructure money, and uh, they went out

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Speaker 1: and consulted with people, and they wanted me to belong

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Speaker 1: to the people of Columbia again. The first thing the

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Speaker 1: people in the Forest neighborhood asked for was escalators, because

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Speaker 1: the women were having to walk down and up the

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Speaker 1: equivalent of almost thirty floors every day, very steep incline,

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Speaker 1: with these heavy jugs full of water when they were

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Speaker 1: going back up on their heads. And uh, it's now

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Speaker 1: a big national tourist attraction in Columbia. You know. I

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Speaker 1: would met people from ten or twelve countries on the

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Speaker 1: escalators today that I went there. But all they could

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Speaker 1: think about was we didn't bargain for that. We just

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Speaker 1: wanted these women not to have to spend their lives

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Speaker 1: going up and down the hill to get water. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's a people don't think about it, and it's important.

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Speaker 1: So you finally decided to write a book about this,

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Speaker 1: The Worth of Water. I'm curious. I want to ask

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Speaker 1: a personal question first. I find writting books is hard,

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Speaker 1: hard work, and it's also introspective. If you're gonna be honest,

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Speaker 1: you gotta ask yourself what you care about. So is

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Speaker 1: there anything to both of you that you learned about

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Speaker 1: your own work or yourself during the process. Well, I

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Speaker 1: found it relatively easy because normally I have to write

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Speaker 1: with Ben Affleck, and this time it was just writing

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Speaker 1: with Gary. So it was that was it was much

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Speaker 1: much smoother process. But we we really when we talked

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Speaker 1: about it, we said, well, we want this to feel

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Speaker 1: like is like you're in the back of the jeep

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Speaker 1: with us somewhere in India and we're driving between site

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Speaker 1: visits and we're just having a free wheeling conversation about

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Speaker 1: how we got here and what happened and all the

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Speaker 1: all the mistakes we made and the failures. But then

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Speaker 1: the success is because for us, it's another way to

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Speaker 1: get this word out, you know, when you can't. You

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Speaker 1: you were nice enough to come to an event of

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Speaker 1: ours ten years ago in twelve We hadn't we hadn't

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Speaker 1: hit a million people yet that we've reached. But you

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Speaker 1: looked at what we were doing and you got it.

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Speaker 1: You got it faster than anybody, and you said and

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Speaker 1: you took us aside and you said, just run it up,

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Speaker 1: run the numbers up, make it undeniable, because if we could,

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Speaker 1: if we can prove this model, which we because it

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Speaker 1: started as a hypothesis of Gary's um but the idea

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Speaker 1: that these women, just one after another, millions of them

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Speaker 1: are paying back these loans at over, it's just the

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Speaker 1: most heroic thing. It's the most beautiful thing. And it's

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Speaker 1: and it just proves what we believed, which was that

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Speaker 1: if if we just nudge a market towards them and

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Speaker 1: get out of the way and let them solve their

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Speaker 1: own problems, they will do it. And and that's really

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Speaker 1: and so they're really at the center of this of

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Speaker 1: this story. Um But but the numbers that you say,

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Speaker 1: now it's forty three point seven million people this month,

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Speaker 1: that that that's where we were at, and it's gonna

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Speaker 1: be fifty million people by the end of this year,

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Speaker 1: which is just staggering because that's in the ten years

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Speaker 1: since we since you came to that event. Um So

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Speaker 1: it's really accelerating and and and that's something that's exciting,

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Speaker 1: and that's what we want to we that's the word

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Speaker 1: we want to get out there because if there's one

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Speaker 1: thing Americans respond to and they've pulled on this. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter where you are in the political spectrum. If

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Speaker 1: an idea works, we like it, you know, so and

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Speaker 1: this is an idea that works, uh, And so you

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Speaker 1: know that's we're we're just trying to find different ways

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Speaker 1: to engage people and let them hear the story. It

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Speaker 1: is us this time trying to relate the story of

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Speaker 1: someone else, and that is you know, that representative woman,

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Speaker 1: you know, who represents literally billions that don't have access

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Speaker 1: to water and sanitation. So we have two jobs here.

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Speaker 1: One is to like go out and always be innovating

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Speaker 1: the next thing that's going to get more people of

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Speaker 1: water more efficiently. And the other is like telling the

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Speaker 1: story so that we can mobilize people to this work

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Speaker 1: and and engage them in the stories of these women

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Speaker 1: that we tell in the book. More after this tell

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Speaker 1: us a little bit about the water credit and if

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Speaker 1: one of the things that the world has learned that

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Speaker 1: I wish we'd act more on is that poor people

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Speaker 1: are a good credit risk if they appreciated when somebody

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Speaker 1: helps them and they feel a strong moral responsibility to

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Speaker 1: pay the money. By Gramin bank proved in Bangladesh, brack

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Speaker 1: proved at all the great micro credit experiments. But if

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Speaker 1: you give the credit for something people really have to have,

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Speaker 1: like water, you even get higher rates of return. But

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Speaker 1: tell us how it works. Well, I'll say, because Gary

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Speaker 1: doesn't brag a lot. But this this came from an

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Speaker 1: inside of his which was spending all his time in

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Speaker 1: these communities. He realized that that people were paying for water.

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Speaker 1: In many cases, they were paying up to of their

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Speaker 1: income for water uh usually off the back of a

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Speaker 1: truck or some other system that or by going and

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Speaker 1: using their time and going and standing at a community

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Speaker 1: UH source and spending three hours there and and taking

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Speaker 1: time away from a paying job to do it. And

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Speaker 1: so he looked at what Mohammed units did and said, well,

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Speaker 1: what if we what if we repurposed that and you know,

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Speaker 1: to to to the water sect. Why wouldn't that work

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Speaker 1: because and there was a lot of resistance at the

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Speaker 1: beginning because it wasn't an income generating loan, and that's

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Speaker 1: what the whole thing was built on. And so the

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Speaker 1: the the m f I s went, We'll wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: this doesn't how how am I going to get my

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Speaker 1: money back? And and what we found was that because

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Speaker 1: we're actually buying somebody's time time back. It's what we

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Speaker 1: would call an income enhancing loan. Right, they're able to

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Speaker 1: suddenly if you give them a two hundred dollar loan

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Speaker 1: and you connect them directly to the infrastructure that's already

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Speaker 1: piping water right under their feet, they're just not connected

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Speaker 1: to it. If you if you pay that connection, now,

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Speaker 1: suddenly they have all this extra time to work. They

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Speaker 1: pay the loan off really easily. They end up with

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Speaker 1: a very small water tariff that's negligible compared to what

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Speaker 1: they were paying per month for water. So it was

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Speaker 1: it was a hypothesis that Gary had based in his experience,

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Speaker 1: and but it was a thought leap for the micro

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Speaker 1: finance institutions um and one that we eventually when once

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Speaker 1: we proved it enough, they started to take with us.

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Speaker 1: And that was the time when you said to us,

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Speaker 1: so this is gonna work, This is really gonna work. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and to me, this whole concept. You know, before this,

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Speaker 1: we were kind of going along with the traditional approach,

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Speaker 1: raising money, drilling wells and helping communities get water. It

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Speaker 1: was fine, but it certainly wasn't you know, going to

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Speaker 1: solve this in a big way, and during that process,

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Speaker 1: talking to so many women in these communities and just

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Speaker 1: listening to what their stories were about how they were

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Speaker 1: getting their water, how much time they were spending. Talking

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Speaker 1: to one woman uh who described a loan she took

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Speaker 1: out from a loan shark so she could build a toilet.

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Speaker 1: And this was a big epiphany for me because she

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Speaker 1: told me what she was paying a loan shark to

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Speaker 1: get the payment for the toilet. And I did the

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Speaker 1: numbers and it was a hundred and twenty five percent

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Speaker 1: interest that she was paying on that loan because microfinance

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Speaker 1: institutions wouldn't lend for this because, as Matt said, they

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Speaker 1: see it as too risky. And that's where we came

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Speaker 1: in and using her insight and the stories of other

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Speaker 1: women who are walking to get water, and say, okay,

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Speaker 1: let's help these microfinance institutions build a new engine, right

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Speaker 1: and that engine is around water and sanitation. And we

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Speaker 1: would take the risk. If these loans didn't take back

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Speaker 1: to get paid back, we would make them good because

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Speaker 1: we knew it would work well. We thought's very strongly

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Speaker 1: worked because of our research. But then it happened, you know,

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Speaker 1: we got them to come on board. And now there's

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Speaker 1: you know, well over a hundred of these institutions around

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Speaker 1: the world providing these loans. And again it all traces

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Speaker 1: back to sitting down and listening to the people who

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Speaker 1: this problem affects the most, because that's where the solution

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Speaker 1: is really going to come from. And how many countries

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Speaker 1: are you making these loans available now? So we're in

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Speaker 1: over twenty countries now. And if you bring in water Equity,

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Speaker 1: which is the asset manager that we didn't launched, it's

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Speaker 1: it's even north of that, so uh Asia, uh Africa,

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Speaker 1: Latin America. So we're everywhere where people are needing access

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Speaker 1: to water right now. So what does water Equity do? Well,

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Speaker 1: you'll like this. This is so also if we if

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Speaker 1: you had told us ten years ago that we would

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Speaker 1: be doing some deep dive on finance, I would have said,

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Speaker 1: now what are you talking about? But this is kind

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Speaker 1: of where this journey led us, which was we were

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Speaker 1: in India, was it seven or eight years ago? Maybe? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we were we were on this trip and we

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Speaker 1: were going and meeting with all these different m f

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Speaker 1: I partners of ours and informally independently polling them saying Hey,

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Speaker 1: what what's your biggest bottleneck here? And what And every

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Speaker 1: single one of them came back with access to affordable capital.

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Speaker 1: So we built basically an asset manager with a lot

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Speaker 1: of help from you know, a lot of a lot

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Speaker 1: of technical expertise from from people. But um, but the

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Speaker 1: idea is that we can give you a return, uh

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Speaker 1: a good like a competitive return, but also do this

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Speaker 1: incredible good with with the investment. Right, We're gonna serve

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Speaker 1: a quantifiable number of people and get them access to

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Speaker 1: clean water and sanitation, um and give you, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: a competitive return on an investment. So so that's uh

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Speaker 1: so that's what that's water equity. So let's let's him

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Speaker 1: um hearing about this the first time. And I bought

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Speaker 1: your book because I like the Jason Bourne movies and

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Speaker 1: I'm blown away. But and I want to make a difference.

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Speaker 1: But I'm just the work and stuff and I can

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Speaker 1: maybe send you two hundred fifty bucks. What would you

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Speaker 1: do with the two d fifty contribution? Well, first of all,

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Speaker 1: that's a lot of money, and especially given that because

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Speaker 1: these loans all get paid back the way they do,

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Speaker 1: it drives down the philanthropic philanthropic cost the capital per

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Speaker 1: person reached. So in a traditional well drilling program, it

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Speaker 1: costs about twenty five dollars to give somebody uh clean

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Speaker 1: water for life. With our programs that we're down below

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Speaker 1: five dollars per person reached. So a two d fifty

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Speaker 1: dollar loan is you know, it's fifty people you're talking about.

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Speaker 1: Uh if I did the math right, I'm not sure,

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Speaker 1: but but but it's it's it's a it's an incredibly

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Speaker 1: significant amount of money to us. So there's no a

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Speaker 1: five dollar loan. If you wanted to just on a

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Speaker 1: one to one help one know the you helped one

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Speaker 1: person achieve access, you should send us five bucks to

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Speaker 1: water dot org and that's what it would do, and

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Speaker 1: you would make the loans directly. So we're not we're

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Speaker 1: not doing it directly. But what we can do with

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Speaker 1: that that two or fifty dollar donation is translated into

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Speaker 1: more of these partners around the world. So we would

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Speaker 1: use that money to go out and help new partners

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Speaker 1: discover this as a good thing to add to their

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Speaker 1: lending portfolio, doing that de risking. We'd use that money

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Speaker 1: to help get them training to help them design the

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Speaker 1: different types of water solutions. To help them, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort through the different types of water systems that would

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Speaker 1: be right for different parts of the world and for

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Speaker 1: different families. So we would kind of, you know, the

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Speaker 1: way I think of it as continuing to further build

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Speaker 1: this engine that is allowing people to get these loans

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Speaker 1: so that water equity can be the fuel that comes

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Speaker 1: in and invest those large chunks of capital to then

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Speaker 1: break that into millions of micro loans so people get water,

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Speaker 1: and then those investors in water equity then get that

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Speaker 1: competitive financial return. So we're trying to come at this

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Speaker 1: and meet people where they are, to that person who

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Speaker 1: can donate five dollars and we can translate that into

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Speaker 1: more women getting loans, to you know, high net worth

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Speaker 1: individuals who invest in US more with a million dollars

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Speaker 1: or multimillion dollar investments, and corporations who come at it

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Speaker 1: because they want to be good water stewards where they're

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Speaker 1: operating and they want to get E s G benefit

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Speaker 1: as well. Tell our listeners. I fancy myself that I

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Speaker 1: still have listeners that just talk flying English and don't

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Speaker 1: know everything. What does SD mean? So that environment, social

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Speaker 1: and governance and it's basically what corporations are seeing as

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Speaker 1: really important if they want to keep customers, if they

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Speaker 1: want to retain particularly younger employees. They want corporations to

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Speaker 1: be not just making a product and selling it and

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Speaker 1: see the stock price go up. They want to see

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Speaker 1: what is this company doing in terms of the environment,

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Speaker 1: what are they doing in terms of social issues right,

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Speaker 1: what are they doing in terms of good corporate governance.

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Speaker 1: So it's the right things to do as a corporate citizen,

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Speaker 1: but it also is increasingly hitting their bottom line if

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Speaker 1: they're not paying attention to some of these broader issues

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Speaker 1: other than just making profits. It's a great example of

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Speaker 1: how stakeholder capitalism works better than shareholder capitalism. If you

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Speaker 1: will make an investment that last five years or more.

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Speaker 1: And I remember, you know, I'm so old now that

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Speaker 1: when I was in law school in the early seventies,

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Speaker 1: that's the way they still taught corporate law, that if

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Speaker 1: you got a charter from the government, you had a

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Speaker 1: responsibility to your employees, your customers, your shareholders, and the

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Speaker 1: communities of which you were as well as your suppliers.

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Speaker 1: And you know, there was mutual obligation here. And then

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, starting in late seventies, and early eighties,

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Speaker 1: there was this the only thing that really matters as

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Speaker 1: a shareholder profits price, and your job is to maximize

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Speaker 1: profit and over the long run that will do the

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Speaker 1: most social good, which is we now know it's simply

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Speaker 1: not true and it's not even the best economics over

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Speaker 1: any time frame that matters five years or longer. And uh,

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Speaker 1: if you think about it, whatever your business you're in,

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Speaker 1: you want to know that you have customers that have

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Speaker 1: enough health because of water that they can be customers

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Speaker 1: and other things. If you if your water starved, is

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Speaker 1: not a lot of other things you're gonna buy. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: I think this is really exciting because if we all

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Speaker 1: thought that way, we would dramatically accelerate the pace at

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Speaker 1: which we're handling climate change. I think if if this

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Speaker 1: system you've set up is either in existence or is

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Speaker 1: copied everywhere, we have a much better chance of getting

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Speaker 1: through the worst of the climate change problem while we're

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Speaker 1: making this great transition. So it's not just about water,

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Speaker 1: it's about climate change, it's about economic security, and I

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Speaker 1: suspect you were talking about the young woman in Zambia.

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Speaker 1: It's also about education. You think about how many children

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Speaker 1: who even now after all these years and all we

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Speaker 1: know still aren't in school, partly because their parents need

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Speaker 1: him to stay home to make ends meet and meet

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Speaker 1: basic needs like go get the water every day. You know,

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Speaker 1: it just gets back to what maps I'm saying earlier too,

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Speaker 1: is this It's the foundation of so many things, and

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Speaker 1: it affects, can affect positively so many things. And just

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Speaker 1: to pick up on the climate change aspect that you're

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Speaker 1: you're referencing, we know that the people that we strive

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Speaker 1: to serve, you know, some of the worst in the world.

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Speaker 1: They are going to bear the greatest burden of climate

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Speaker 1: change and they have the least to do with creating

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Speaker 1: the problem. And so what we are looking at with

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Speaker 1: with our programs is that resilience that they'll need in

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Speaker 1: the face of droughts hitting their water resources. You know,

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Speaker 1: we don't want to backslide at a minimum as this happens.

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Speaker 1: We don't want to create more climate slash water refugees

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Speaker 1: in the world. Um But then also what we see

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Speaker 1: is the mitigation side of this one of the things

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Speaker 1: that we don't talk about quite as much. It's a

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Speaker 1: little bit more technical, but it's the fact that water

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Speaker 1: has an immense carbon footprint. Right you look at you know,

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Speaker 1: a state like California, of all the electricity goes to

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Speaker 1: sourcing water, pumping it, treating it, and distributing it. And

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Speaker 1: so what we see is this huge carbon footprint around

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Speaker 1: the world and in countries where we work, where sometimes

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Speaker 1: half of the water is lost through poor infrastructures leaky pipes. Now,

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you've got a massive carbon footprint

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Speaker 1: of which sometimes provides no economic benefit whatsoever. And so

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Speaker 1: what we're looking at with water equity in particulars how

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Speaker 1: do we invest in some of these utilities and infrastructure

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Speaker 1: so that they drive more supply to people in the

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Speaker 1: poorest neighborhoods, but so they also can reduce their carbon

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Speaker 1: footprint in their greenhouse gases. We'll be right back. Did

433
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: you start working on also providing toilets immediately or did

434
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 1: you get into it? And if so, hell it was

435
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 1: it was just water at first, but then you do.

436
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 1: You know, as we're just saying, all these problems are

437
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: so interconnected. When you look at sanitation and you see

438
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: the fact that when you know, so many countries around

439
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 1: the world have zero treatment of their sewage. Right, so

440
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: where does that go it just goes into these open channels,

441
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 1: that goes into these open streams, and ultimately it's going

442
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 1: to contaminate the water sources that are there, as well

443
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:15,639
Speaker 1: as direct health impacts of children literally playing in some

444
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: of these same ditches. And so for sure, we we

445
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:22,199
Speaker 1: saw this as something that we should be addressing to.

446
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: And what we also discovered was there was a huge

447
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 1: demand for this for micro loans. In fact, in in

448
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: some countries there's more loans that are happening for toilets

449
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: than for for water, and there's a number of reasons

450
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,199
Speaker 1: for that. One is the convenience. You know that you

451
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: have a facility right there, you don't have to go

452
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: some distance and sometimes you have to pay to use

453
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 1: a toilet in some of the slumps, So there's that

454
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 1: economic benefit as well. But it's also just a sense

455
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: of privacy, uh in modesty, you know, for women who

456
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: would otherwise not literally not defecate all day until the

457
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: cover of night to go out and and do at

458
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: now they're taking out incredible numbers of loans so that

459
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: they have better health because of that, and they have

460
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:11,959
Speaker 1: better access to privacy, and that's what they value. But

461
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say we didn't anticipate the

462
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,199
Speaker 1: level to which that our borrow our borrowers brought us

463
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:19,880
Speaker 1: along on that, right, that was something that we learned

464
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:22,919
Speaker 1: from them, and also again that they would would and

465
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: could pay back the loans. But it's but it's very

466
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: common for somebody to take the first loan for the

467
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,160
Speaker 1: water connection and pay that back and then immediately turn

468
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 1: around and take out another loan for for a toilet.

469
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: And you think you'll be a fifty million borrowers by

470
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: the end of the year, Yes, with more to come,

471
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 1: with many more to come, and and and hopefully if

472
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: and faster, depending on how many people jump on board

473
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,120
Speaker 1: and get involved, and how much capital we can get

474
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: into the system. And um, but we're we're you know,

475
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 1: our mission is was to was to put ourselves out

476
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: of business. Right. So it's a big problem, and it's

477
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: a complicated problem. But but this is this is where

478
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: we're making a lot of progress. Yeah, it's and it's

479
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: the systems change, you know that we're really trying to

480
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: bring about. I mean, with that the money that we've

481
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: raised through water equity so far, two hundred million dollars,

482
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: I mean, that is capital that is providing a competitive

483
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: financial return, right, So it's it's it's moving beyond charity

484
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 1: and really literally tapping the global capital markets. Institutional investors

485
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: are coming into the funds now because there are competitive returns.

486
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: And so if we can just create this financial plumbing

487
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: between the global capital markets and that woman making two

488
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: dollars a day and everybody wins, guess what, we can

489
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: step back because it will have actually changed the system.

490
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 1: And that's that's what we're trying to get towards. Well,

491
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 1: you know, in two when we talked about this and

492
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: I told you to run the numbers up. The reason

493
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: I was so excited is I spent a lifetime that

494
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: I love in politics, and I think I was able

495
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:04,479
Speaker 1: to do a lot of good in a lot of ways.

496
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 1: But I noticed that most of the arguments and most

497
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: of the press coverage of what we did in politics

498
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,120
Speaker 1: was about what are you gonna do and how much

499
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: are you going to spend on it, and not nearly

500
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 1: as much about how are you going to do it?

501
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: And the thing that when I was so excited more

502
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,359
Speaker 1: than a decade ago seeing what you guys were producing,

503
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: I thought you had a chance to answer the how question,

504
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: and I think the how questions are the most important

505
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,959
Speaker 1: questions of the century. I also believe Matt's right. I

506
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: think that may be the way to try to end

507
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: some of this dreadful division and the meaning of each

508
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: other that we're doing all the time. Now. I think,

509
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: you know, if you know that you can help somebody

510
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: and feel better about yourself and in the process help

511
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: your kids have a broader future, you answer this how

512
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 1: question in a way that my it's life fulfilling. So

513
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: when you walked out of University Garywood, your shouting new

514
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: civil engineering degree, did you know you were going to

515
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: do this? I did? I did. I had the good

516
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: fortune of organizing some student trips to Guatemala and then

517
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: the Philippines UH to volunteer, and that just cemented it

518
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 1: for me. And I didn't know. You know, I may

519
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: have done another degree in business as their finance instead

520
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: of three engineering degrees to get here, But I've learned

521
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: along the way and and I'm just I'm just yeah,

522
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: I can't imagine doing anything else. And Matt, when you

523
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: were dreaming of a career in the movies, did you

524
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: know when you were young that if you succeeded, this

525
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 1: would be a part of it, not this specific thing,

526
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: but that you had to have another mission. Yeah, that

527
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: was that was something instilled in me really by my

528
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 1: by my mother. Um. She took me at he as

529
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: a teenager, traveling to to Mexico, but to Guatemala and

530
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: rural rural areas there where I saw things that I

531
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: had never seen before, and extreme poverty, of political repression,

532
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:19,239
Speaker 1: you know, social injustice, all these kind of things. And

533
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: it gave me such a better context for my own

534
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: life in the world. Um and and and and lit

535
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 1: a fire in me to say, okay, well, you know,

536
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: as as as as laser focused as I was in

537
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: my twenties on trying to carve out a career in Hollywood,

538
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: which is not a not an easy one too, not

539
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: an easy ring to go after. Um, I knew that

540
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: if things went well, I wanted to I wanted to

541
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: return to this because I wanted it to be a

542
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: significant part of my life. Because Gary and I talked

543
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: about all the time, you know, what is a life

544
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: right it's in you know, and how much of it

545
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: is in service to this kind of greater project and

546
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: and um, you know, what's what's a life worth living?

547
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: So um, so those were all things I that we're

548
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind as I was as

549
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: I was kind of slugging it out and trying to

550
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: trying to build a career. In Hollywood. We tend to

551
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: almost sanctify the people that we admire for doing things

552
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: like this. But it strikes me that you guys have

553
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: had a good time doing this. It's been fun for

554
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: you because it's doing the right thing makes you feel better,

555
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: and also that it's working. It gets exciting when when

556
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: things are going so well. There's Thomas Addison quote, I

557
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: never did a day's work in my life. It was

558
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 1: all fun. And certainly there are there are high points

559
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: and low points in this, but I think it's you know,

560
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: if you really find your passion and it is in

561
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: service to people, for sure. But you know, I couldn't

562
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: do this if it was just drilling one more well.

563
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: It's the challenge of the entrepreneurial part of me to

564
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: kind of always be tinkering and experimenting and doing it

565
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: different and to you know, what I call matching the

566
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: scale of the solution to the scale of the problem.

567
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 1: And you know, charity and the way we were going,

568
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't matched to the scale of the problem.

569
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: And I think that entrepreneurial spirit just goes from beginning

570
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: to end. I want to just tell one story about

571
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur I met, and her name was Mom of Florence.

572
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: That's the name she introduced herself to me as when

573
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: I was in Uganda to visit with her. She had

574
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: taken out a two seventy five alone to put a

575
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: pump in a water tank at her house, and she

576
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: of course then had water for her children and grandchildren

577
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: that was safe to drink. But then she used the

578
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: water to grow a garden and so then they had vegetables.

579
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: Then they would feed some of those too, some pigs

580
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: that they then got and they would water the pigs

581
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: and then sell the pigs. And then she had clay

582
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: soil around her, so she used the water to start

583
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: making bricks and she would sell the bricks. Then she

584
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: started using the bricks to build some rooms on the

585
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: side of her house that she then rented out to

586
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: other people. So you can just see, all these people

587
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: around the world have this entrepreneurial spirit in them, and

588
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: it can be something as simple as water that can

589
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: unleash this in them. That the real people who are

590
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: solving us are out there doing it every day, and

591
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: then they're using water as a tool to do all

592
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: these things. And Mama Florence is even now sending her

593
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: grandchildren to school with the extra earnings that she has.

594
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:30,239
Speaker 1: So it just completes the whole circle. As we all know,

595
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: lean into this as as entrepreneurs wherever we are to

596
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: make it better. It's a wonderful story of what you

597
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: guys have done. I hope that many of our listeners

598
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: will read the worth of water, and I hope a

599
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 1: fair number of them will decide to support what you're

600
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: doing because it works and it's noble because it allows

601
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: people to be more alive while they're living, which after all,

602
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: is the real purpose of all this. So thank you

603
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: very much. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you,

604
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: Thanks Gary, We really appreciate it for helping us spread this.

605
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: Thank you. Why am I telling you? This is a

606
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at

607
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craigmanessian and Will Molnadi.

608
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sara Horowitz,

609
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 1: and Jake Young, with production support from Liz Raftoree and

610
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: Josh Farnham. Original music by What White. Special thanks to

611
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:36,720
Speaker 1: John Sykes, John Davidson on hell Orina, Corey Ginstley, Kevin

612
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 1: thurm Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and partners

613
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm back at courtsild and

614
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: I'm a deputy director at the Clinton Global Initiative. President

615
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: Clinton established the Clinton Global Initiative to create a new

616
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,440
Speaker 1: kind of philanthropic community to address the complex realities of

617
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,800
Speaker 1: our modern world. We're problem solving, We're whired the active

618
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: partnership of government, business and civil society. Over the years,

619
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: are proven model has grown to include action networks that

620
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: can quickly mobilize in the face of emergencies, whether that's

621
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: helping Puerto Rico and the Caribbean recover in the wake

622
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: of Hurricanes Rman and Maria, or advancing an inclusive US

623
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: economic recovery amid COVID nineteen. To learn more about this

624
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: work and see how you can get involved, visit Clinton

625
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: Foundation dot org. Slash Podcast