BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Alumni

SECTOR
Services

HEADQUARTERS
Switzerland

REGION OF INITIATIVE
Asia & Pacific

SDG CONTRIBUTION

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Swizerland-based sustainable business enabler WeConnex joined Business Call to Action (BCtA) in September 2017 with a commitment to establish 100 of its NEXUS Centres in South Nepal, providing affordable access to basic services such as drinking water, energy and internet to 200,000 people by 2022. These Centres will also be used to train and support 500 future entrepreneurs (80 percent of them women) to start or expand their businesses.

Nepal is a mountainous landlocked country with a population near 28 million, of which 80 percent live in rural areas and depend on subsistence farming for their livelihoods. Although Nepal is often considered to be rich in water resources, the quality and availability of drinking water vary widely. Only 18 percent of the country’s gravity-fed pipes are fully functional. In remote, impoverished areas, inadequate wastewater management and arsenic contamination are serious problems that lead to a high incidence of disease.

WeConnex was founded in 2015 to develop and manage projects for rural infrastructure and micro-utilities through the ‘NEXUS Concept’, which aims to use local resources as a springboard for promoting small entrepreneurship. In collaboration with local implementation partner NEXUS Technology, the company provides poor communities with access to basic services like safe drinking water, sanitation and communication at fair prices while fostering local entrepreneurship – all powered by renewable energy systems.

Each NEXUS Center is an entrepreneurial hub that provides access to clean water and energy supplies, and offers a home for local businesses.
The NEXUS inclusive business model uses a modular approach that allows the company to tailor products and services to community needs, and offers partnership opportunities with telecommunication providers, microfinance institutions and other local businesses. This makes the Centres true ‘one-stop’ retail and infrastructure facilities that aggregates community members’, promotes local development and creates employment opportunities.

Since 2016, WeConnex and NEXUS Technology P have helped local enterpreneurs to establish 10 NEXUS Centers in Nepal – each supporting more than 30 entrepreneurs and serving a customer base of approximately 2,000 people. These Centers runs exclusively on solar energy, producing up to 8,000 litres of drinking water per day. The NEXUS concept implies the sustainable use of all resources: from the construction of the Centres themselves and energy supply to water treatment, sustainable resource management and high quality standards are pillars of the inclusive business model.

In addition to its BCtA commitment to establish 100 NEXUS Centers in South Nepal by 2022, the company aims to support 50 fishing cooperatives in Madagascar while establishing 50 NEXUS Centres in that country – all by the same year. More than 100,000 people are expected to benefit from the resulting access to safe drinking water, clean energy and internet access as well as a sustainable ecosystem for entrepreneurial development.