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Akvo activities and services

Which services does Akvo offer?

Akvo offers three things:

  1. Akvopedia - Online knowledge on low-cost, sustainable water and sanitation technology and approaches. Akvopedia works just like Wikipedia, anyone can edit it.
  2. Akvo Marketplace - a Marketplace for projects which are looking for funds.
  3. Akvo Really Simple Reporting - a project reporting and visualization system.

What are the benefits from using Akvo tools?

Akvo makes it easier to:

  • Find projects to fund - The Akvo Marketplace makes it clear where your money goes. When people or institutions fund Akvo projects, they are changing the lives of real people in real places. Funders choose the projects they want and watch progress unfold as the community teams share updates via SMS, photos and movie clips.
  • Find donors to fund your project - The Akvo Marketplace cuts bureaucracy and paperwork for NGOs around the world who today find it difficult to showcase projects and reach a wider audience of donors. Trusted partners can post projects in a simple manner without being forced through complex steps. Akvo makes it easier and quicker for you to find more funding with less technology investment.
  • Report on project progress - Akvo Really Simple Reporting (RSR) makes it easy for local communities and field teams to share short text updates, images and video clips, creating a positive feedback loop. Donors and fundraisers follow project progress online and can showcase storylines automatically in their own websites using Akvo Widgets. NGOs can work with more partners because we offer a common standard for project updates.
  • Share water and sanitation knowledge - Akvopedia works just like Wikipedia. It is filled with information on smart and affordable water and sanitation technology in rural or urban settings. Anyone can contribute knowledge and edit Akvopedia. Local field workers get access to new ideas for their projects, and can share knowledge in new ways. For those with good content but who are short of time to share it, Akvopedia offers free editorial services.

How is Akvo different from other sites?

Akvo offers new tools that make it possible to implement development projects in a more efficient way and with a higher level of transparency than has been possible before. Akvo offers new ways of funding and reporting for projects, attracting money from new categories of donors.

Akvo has placed special emphasis on the potential to improve access to water and sanitation, because investments in that area have been shown to be very effective in reducing poverty and promoting development. Because of the previous work experience of our staff, our network in the water and sanitation field is already very large. Having knowledge on water and sanitation in-house leads to much richer and effective relationship with our partners than a simple funding relationship would make possible.

Thirdly, there is a real synergy between the Really Simple Reporting and the Akvopedia. The articles on technologies and approaches in Akvopedia act as inputs and inspiration for the projects, and the projects provide field experiences stories, acting as context for the Akvopedia articles.

Finally, the Akvo tools which allow project updating through SMS make it possible to do project updating from places without internet access.

Isn't Akvo diverting funds away from important project work?

The start-up funding that Akvo has received would otherwise not have gone to projects in the field - it was specifically earmarked to explore innovative new ways of improving how water and sanitation projects are implemented.

The goal is that with the help of Akvo tools, people are able to implement more projects with the same resources, and implement them more effectively.

What is Akvopedia?

Akvopedia works just like Wikipedia. It is filled with information on smart and affordable water and sanitation technology in rural or peri-urban settings. Anyone can contribute knowledge and edit Akvopedia. Local field workers get access to new ideas for their projects, and can share knowledge in new ways. For those with good content but who are short of time to share it, Akvopedia offers free editorial services.

What is the Akvo Marketplace?

It is a place to showcase development aid projects that are looking for funds. Organizations, companies and individuals who like the project can donate to a specific project. Akvo collects the funds and channels them to the project organization, sometimes through a Support partner. In this way, an individual project can attract funding from many different sources.

A single project can appear on many different websites through the use of ‘widgets’: a section on a website (of a Funding partner, a school, an NGO, etc) which is filled with information from the Akvo website. See below at ‘What is a Widget?’

What is Akvo Realy Simple Reporting?

It is a web- and SMS-based reporting system that allows Field partners and communities that work on projects to easily share short text updates, images and movie clips. RSR is an easy and transparent way to track projects in the field on a regular basis, and to share and visualise results in an appealing way. One of the benefits is the increased transparency from publishing all the project details including funds, deliverables, and updates, on a freely accessible website.

RSR does not create an additional layer of reporting. It is a tool that makes it possible to move some of the reporting that is already happening to a place where more people can follow it, and where it can be more useful. As the RSR tools are easy to use, this does not add an extra burden - on the contrary, it will safe time of field staff.

Donors and fundraisers can follow project progress online and can showcase project developments automatically in their own websites using Akvo Widgets. NGOs can work with more partners because Akvo RSR offers a common standard for project updates.

What is Akvo Phone?

Akvo Phone is the name of the Akvo mobile phone platform, which is currently under development. One of the components is Really Simple Reporting through SMS.

What is a widget?

A widget is an internet tool that allows you to embed information from the Akvo project webpages into other websites. Because the information comes from the Akvo system, it is automatically updated when a project changes, such as when there are new updates. It is like taking a YouTube movie and putting it on a website: if the YouTube movie changes, it changes on the website where it is embedded as well.

A widget can show an individual project, or a random project from an organization, or a listing of all projects from an organization. As an example, see Aqua for All, which has an Akvo widget on the left-hand side of the home page, and a different widget here, featuring a list of projects supported by Aqua for All.

How many organizations are using Akvo services?

You can see how many organizations are using the Akvo services by going to the Akvo partner pages at http://www.akvo.org/rsr/organizations/, where they are all listed.

What does it mean that all the Akvo tools are open source?

It means that anyone can take the tools (Akvo Marketplace and Akvo Really Simple Reporting) we have build and reuse them for other purposes, such as, for example, fighting malaria, market approaches for the poor, or agriculture. The only thing we ask in return is that any improvements that are made to the tools are shared back, in the same way as we share the tools. For more information about the open source licenses used, see the Akvo Licenses and Copyright page.

If Akvo's tools are open-source, can I set up my own version independently?

Yes you can. However, we think there is a big benefit for the development aid sector to have one open database in which knowledge and projects are collected. We provide a range of tools that make it easy for partners to feature projects on their own websites. We're also keen to bring online new features to help partners assert the unique identity and focus of their organisations, while maintaining the system as an open one where the emphasis is on collaboration between everyone.