Wayout International has signed a contract with Sustainable Water, Irrigation and Farming Technologies (Swift) for the deployment of their first Wayout drinking water system in Botswana.

The first system is planned for deployment in January 2027, supported by a ten-year water offtake agreement secured by Swift in Botswana, providing the long-term commercial foundation for the investment.

Wayout’s platform enables drinking water to be produced locally from available source water through an integrated system combining purification, controlled mineralisation, reusable distribution, smart dispensing and digital monitoring.

Initially, the partnership aimed to deploy Wayout systems in Malawi, however, despite the existence of strong local demand, severe foreign-exchange constraints made it difficult to finance imported infrastructure and prevented the original project from reaching financial close.

Swift spent the intervening period expanding its activities beyond Malawi and establishing a growing presence in Southern Africa, including Botswana, while Wayout continued developing financing structures designed to make its distributed drinking water infrastructure commercially deployable in markets where access to conventional infrastructure financing can be challenging.

This resulted in a model combining long-term contracted water demand, local operational capability and Wayout’s distributed technology platform.

“The original ambition in Malawi was right, but the financing environment made execution extremely difficult,” said Wayout International founder and CEO Ulf Stenerhag.

Swift then pivoted to expand regionally, built new business and secured a long-term customer commitment in Botswana.

“Together, we now have the commercial foundation to deploy our first system and build from there.”

For Wayout, the agreement is particularly significant because it demonstrates how distributed water infrastructure can move beyond aid-funded or one-off equipment projects toward long-term, commercially financed essential infrastructure.

For Swift, the Botswana project is also part of a broader evolution from a Malawi-based engineering company into a regional provider of sustainable water infrastructure.

“Our vision has always been larger than a single project or a single country. The challenges we faced in Malawi forced us to think differently and expand. Securing a ten-year offtake agreement in Botswana gives us the long-term foundation required to invest in infrastructure rather than simply sell equipment,” said Swift founder and CEO Ulaya Mwale.

Now the partners are turning that vision into a commercially sustainable drinking water service, with the first Botswana installation a potential blueprint for further expansion across Southern Africa: secure long-term demand first, establish a bankable commercial structure and then deploy distributed drinking water infrastructure close to where the water is consumed.