More than water: How PepsiCo is helping communities build long-term resilience

More than water: How PepsiCo is helping communities build long-term resilience

A child filling a water bottle before school. A farmer able to irrigate crops during a dry season. A mother spending less time collecting water and more time earning an income. A community gaining confidence that clean water will still be available tomorrow.

In places where safe water is not guaranteed, moments like these can change the course of a day and, over time, the future of a community. The consequences are measured in more than liters. They may show up in missed school days, hours spent collecting water, crops that cannot withstand another dry season and families forced to plan around uncertainty.

For more than 20 years, PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation have worked with local partners around the world to help make moments like these possible. From rural villages in China and India to communities in Colombia, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Pakistan, the company's safe water access efforts have focused on one goal: helping people gain reliable access to one of life's most essential resources. PepsiCo has reached 97 million people since 2010 through safe water access initiatives and related programs around the world, as the company works toward its goal of reaching 100 million people with safe water access by 2030.

Over those decades, local water projects have shown how access can reach far beyond the tap. Across communities, partnerships focused on safe water access are helping address the practical barriers that shape daily life, from whether children can focus in school to whether families can rely on water systems during periods of drought or environmental stress.

Every community has a different context, but a common theme runs through them: water is rarely only a health or infrastructure issue. It is also about time, opportunity and resilience.

More than water: Safe access gives communities back time

When clean water is close by and reliable, it can give people back time. For children, that may mean fewer disruptions during the school day. For families, it can mean less time spent searching for water and more time for work, study or care.

Near PepsiCo's food plant in Kosi, Uttar Pradesh, India, work with FORCE on Water and WASH initiatives has focused on practical changes that communities can feel: safe drinking water access points, improved hygiene and sanitation infrastructure and local water management. In nearby schools, those improvements can help reduce barriers to attendance and create healthier learning environments, particularly for girls.

In rural China, severe water scarcity once placed a heavy burden on communities, with women bearing much of the responsibility for securing water for their families. To help address limited access to safe drinking water, the China Women's Development Foundation launched the Mother Water Cellar Program. Since PepsiCo began supporting the program in 2001, what began with investments in household rainwater harvesting systems, community water infrastructure, and school water purification facilities has evolved into a broader effort aiming to encompass sanitation improvement, waste management, water conservation, irrigation development, environmental education, and water-saving agricultural practices.

Through these efforts, the program strives to strengthen communities' capacity for sustainable water resource management, delivering lasting benefits and contributing to China's rural revitalization agenda.

Photo credit: WaterAid Nigeria

More than water: Reliable water can unlock education and opportunity

Water access can also shape opportunity. When communities have the tools and knowledge to manage water more reliably, the benefits can extend from household routines to education, livelihoods and local leadership.

At Ojodu Junior High School in Lagos State, Nigeria, access to water is closely tied to the basics of learning. Without reliable water, handwashing is harder, sanitation facilities are less safe, and students can lose time and confidence in the classroom environment. A solar-powered system developed with WaterAid and support from the PepsiCo Foundation has helped bring cleaner water and improved sanitation to the school, making the school day more predictable for students and staff.

Since 2022, the PepsiCo Foundation's partnership with WaterAid Nigeria has moved far beyond a single school project to reshape how an entire community accesses water. Across Lagos State, the partnership has built water facilities, sanitation facilities, drinking water stations and handwashing facilities, delivering direct access to clean water and sanitation for schools, communities and a primary health center. The change goes deeper than infrastructure: women trained as area mechanics now operate and maintain these systems as a source of livelihood, while the partnership helped Ikorodu North Local Council Development Authority build Lagos' first WASH Investment Plan, a long-term budgeting and asset-management tool now anchoring government advocacy for sustained water and sanitation funding. Together, these efforts show a program that has grown from isolated fixes into a lasting, locally owned system for water security in Lagos.

More than water: Local water stewardship builds community resilience

In water-stressed regions, resilience often depends on a mix of local knowledge, practical infrastructure and long-term maintenance. The most effective projects are rarely one-size-fits-all; they respond to the geography, culture and climate pressures of each place.

In Colombia's Alta Guajira desert, that included the PepsiCo Foundation working with Wayuu communities to strengthen jagüeyes, traditional rainwater collection systems that are vital in an arid region. In Thailand's Lamphun province, it has helped to protect a community water source at Huayhok Waterfall, where local environmental action helps maintain a weir that supports water availability for surrounding communities.

More than water: A foundation for possibility

The power of these projects is not only in the infrastructure itself, but in the ripple effect it can create: helping children stay focused in school, helping families plan their days with more certainty and preparing communities for conditions that are becoming harder to predict. It's also a reminder that water is never only a solution for people or the planet; the two are deeply linked.

In the end, the story of water is rarely only about water. It is about the school day that starts on time, the field that survives a dry season, the hours a mother gets back and the confidence a community can carry into tomorrow. For companies, governments and non-governmental organizations working in water-stressed communities, the challenge is to support solutions communities can use, own and sustain. When safe water is accessible to meet local needs, it becomes something much bigger than a resource. It becomes a foundation for possibility.

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