Despite a vast universe of potentially high-impact interventions in the global health and international development space, many good ideas with the proven ability to reduce the burden of poverty are not currently being delivered at scale. Evidence Action was founded with this challenge in mind.
Unsafe water is responsible for more than 1.2 million deaths each year. It is the most common cause of diarrhea, which kills more than half a million children annually. Water access – which is already lagging – is not nearly enough. Accessible water must also be safe to drink: free from pathogens and disease. The water sector has focused primarily on increasing access through constructing new infrastructure and upgrading existing systems, such as investing in piped networks, community level systems and boreholes.
Each year, one million pregnant women have active syphilis infections across the world – and a majority go untreated, resulting in over 350,000 severe adverse outcomes. An inexpensive (less than US$0.50) shot of penicillin prevents the vast majority of the adverse outcomes, yet less than 30% of infected women are treated in many high-burden countries.