With Algeria's capital city of Algiers suffering from a severe shortage of clean drinking water, resulting in strict rationing, stockpiling, as well as the consumption of dirty water by households and farms, the solution showed a requirement in a large investment in infrastructure. The solution came in the form of a public-private partnership involoving the Algerian government, a Massachusetts business, and OPIC; and an innovative technology to make the seawater surrounding the capital city of Algiers drinkable.