University of North Carolina Receives $8.5 Million for Clean Water Initiative

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) recently announced a clean water program there has won a new award worth $8.5 million, the Triangle Business Journal reported.

The five-year award from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will be used to expand a program called Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Enterprise Development (WaterSHED), a joint effort between UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health, the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Kenan Institute-Asia.

The project aims to bring clean drinking water and improved sanitation to homes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

In a statement, UNC says its researchers will search for ways to increase the use of water filters in homes that lack clean drinking water. They will also find ways to achieve financially sustainable, scaled-up access to safe water sources, including rainwater harvesting, improvements in sanitation and better personal hygiene practices.

UNC’s public health school will manage the award. The principal investigator is Kenan Professor of Environmental Sciences andEngineering Mark Sobsey.

The USAID award grew out of the Carolina Global Water Partnership, one of the first Gillings Innovation Laboratories funded through a $50 million gift to the public health school from Dennis and Joan Gillings.

Source: Triangle Business Journal