Gift of the Givers: Africa's Largest Disaster-Response NGO Drills for Water

Gift of the Givers Foundation, headquartered in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, is the largest disaster-response NGO of African origin, having delivered an estimated R6 billion in humanitarian aid across 47 countries since 1992. Its water programme drills boreholes at schools, clinics, and community points, runs two desalination plants, and operates water tankers that deliver more than 3 million litres of water a month, including during Cape Town's 2018 'Day Zero' water crisis and ongoing drought relief in the Eastern Cape and Nelson Mandela Bay. Alongside water provision, the organisation distributes over 120,000 food parcels a year across 7 countries, treats more than 15,000 patients a month through its medical teams, and has awarded R50 million in bursaries and tens of thousands of stationery packs annually to keep vulnerable children in school.