Situation
- Problem: A billion people lack safe transportation access to essential services like health care, education, or employment due to impassable rivers.
- Solution: Cost-effective, scalable and sustainable bridges that connect rural, isolated communities.
- Impact: Over 600 bridges provide safe access for nearly 3 million people in rural communities, improving income, education, and health.
- Annual operating budget: $15.3 million.
Funding model at scale
Bridges to Prosperity has built more than 600 trail bridges, serving almost 3 million community members throughout the world ‘to create a world where poverty caused by rural isolation no longer exists’. Their model involves entering new countries, building ecosystems, partnering with governments, and forming private-public partnerships. This sustains bridge building costs without Bridges to Prosperity needing to perpetually raise funds.
Here’s what their process looks like:
- Initial Assessment: B2P enters a country to deeply understand the context, including the scope and distribution of rural access needs, private sector and public sector standards, and key actors.
- Bridge Construction: The organisation works closely with the government to build capacity and create an enabling environment for a government-led rural access programme. This is achieved through multidimensional collaboration on training bridges, funded through philanthropy.
- Advocacy and Advisory:
- While building bridges, B2P advocates for the importance of bridges and government funding for their construction.
- They provide technical advisory services to help governments effectively plan, prioritise, budget, and implement rural infrastructure projects. Additionally, they address key gaps in education and private sector capacity, building local capacity and ownership.
- Exit Strategy: After 5-10 years, B2P exits the country, leaving the government fully responsible for expanding and maintaining the rural infrastructure network, with an allocated budget for bridges. B2P will then move into another country, following the same process.
Bridges to Prosperity has scaled in Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zambia, with government and private sector partners funding the bridges. In these countries, government contributions cover up to 80% of bridge-building costs.
To fill the remaining funding gap and support their role, B2P relies on philanthropy, corporate, and government funding.