What Users Are Saying About PWX

Sushil Bajpai, Watershed Organization Trust, India

"What I saw in PWX took my breath away. I am truly surprised that the world of NGOs, their partners and funding agencies have not grabbed this tool and run. I was also moved by your vision, the power of the tool and its rooting in collaboration."

Rick McGowan, East Meets West, Vietnam

"It is clear that there is a broad range of knowledge, understanding and experience among those who submitted proposals. I think that people who have more experience in the water development business have an obligation to help tutor and encourage those who have less experience, as we are all trying to do the right thing in the long run, right?"

Bunker Roy, Barefoot College, India

"The drawbacks of the current funding model is that it to too patronizing and it presumes that we need the knowledge, skills and wisdom of the North. The track record over the last two decades have shown that the solutions being offered by the North have been expensive, wasteful and indeed by and large they have failed. What we need is a more active, equal, respectful South-South exchange.”

Joe Madiath, Gram Vikas, India

"[PWX] does away with the bureaucracies involved in the conventional method and is of course transparent, gives scope for peer review, is very effective in terms of resource use and provides cross exchange and learning. For an implementing organization, such platforms do help in putting forth ideas in succinct manner and saves much of time and resources in putting up lengthy proposals."

Thomas Palgadhmal, Watershed Organization Trust, India

"PWX is one of the innovative and excellent methods of sanctioning the project proposals through peer group assessment. NGOs have the opportunity to know more details of the excellent work carried out by the different NGOs. One gets an opportunity to know and interact with different partner NGOs of the world engaged in providing safe drinking water tot needy communities

Through PWX we had an opportunity to learn/know the different appropriate low cost and affordable technologies being used by partner NGOs in different parts of the world. Some of these technologies could be replicated in our areas too.

PWX system avoids the administrative expenses additional requirement of human resource by the funding agency. In normal practice, the projects are submitted to the funding agency for the approval or sanction. The explanations and additional information is provided by the NGO to the funding agency, but the information and knowledge is useful only to the funding agency. But under the new developed PWX system the project proposals are scrutinized and assessed by the all the partner NGOs.

The PWX system is easy and computer friendly to operate. The progress reports and additional information of the project, photographs can be disseminated through the system."

Susan Davis, CARE, USA

"PWX is an innovative way to address the issue of how a small organization can administer a great deal of funding without having to hire a huge staff.

PWX is straightforward to use, and the review process shows that it also has potential to serve as a forum for knowledge sharing and peer mentoring. Challenges will be keeping the review process streamlined and requirements reasonable.”

Jesca Ochieng, Oywa A Solar Support Group, Kenya

"PWX has the best approach to analyzing proposals in a very transparent manner. We thank the entire PWX team and Blue Planet Run for the unique initiative of scrutinizing applications and ensuring that even inexperienced groups like Oywa get a chance to participate in the process. We have really learnt a lot and expect to learn more with your continued support.

We only have some suggestions to enable rural and remote groups like Oywa to meet their deadlines. These include issues like enabling groups to acquire computers or laptops. This would enable them to communicate with you in good time. It would also mean the groups will spend less time in travelling to towns like Kisumu where such services are available."

Don Howard, Rotary, USA

"Joining PWX paid unexpected dividends. The responses to my proposal posed probing questions that caused me to delve deeper into some of the water project planning. Our focus in looking at water projects has expanded to consider the economic, environmental, political and sustainability issues more deeply.

In evaluating grants proposed by other organizations, I learned about ways of structuring future grants more effectively. The experience was very helpful in many ways and I was happy to receive funding for one of our projects."

Carole Harper, El Porvenir, Nicaragua

"The application requirements of some funders, e.g. C--- Canada, are so onerous and time consuming that our organization would have to take three or four staff members off of their usual work in project development, reforestation and health education, for at least a month, just to fill out all the forms and give all the workshops required in order to submit an application. Is this a good use of our resources? Is there an alternative funding source which does not require excessive forms, paperwork, staff time taken away from our real work?"

Rob Bell, El Porvenir, Nicaragua

"My impressions of PWX are on the whole positive. I certainly understand the point of view about the difficulty of evaluating projects where we have no experience; however, I think it is a good system, not too overwhelming with details, easy to use, and provides some good opportunities for sharing knowledge between partners.

A downside was that not all the partners participated equally, and for example one of the projects I reviewed, they never answered my questions and I had to mark their project low, in part because of my doubts, but in part because of lack of information. I hope more people will find the time to participate."

What Water Authorities Are Saying About PWX

Dr. Peter Gleick
President, Pacific Institute
Author of the biennial series: The World's Water

"What I've seen so far looks tremendous. I've seen nothing else like it, and think it offers serious potential for improving transparency, information available to users, and the ability to understand what really works in the real world."

Ravi Narayanan
Vice Chairman, Asia Pacific Water Forum
Director, Arghyam
Former CEO, WaterAid

"BPR's initiative to use a peer review process to assess and approve water and sanitation projects is bold in its conception and inclusive in its method. Bringing in organizations and individuals in different parts of the world to the process of project selection and approval is both transparent and cost effective. Other organizations supporting water and sanitation projects may well have something to learn from this approach."

Irreverent Quotes on Water and Technology

Robert Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

"There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good."

Putt's Law

"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand."

Rick Cook
The Wizardry Compiled

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

How Does PWX Work?

NEW: A video of PWX in action showing features and benefits.
A process and activity diagram explains how PWX works.
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Our stakeholder matrix shows how PWX benefits many diverse constituencies.
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Read what members are saying about their PWX experience.

PWX Summary

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