Typical abandoned handpump.
Although technical expertise was available, this pump could not be repaired when it broke down after some years, due to the lack of spare parts.
The new AFRiPUMP installed on the base of an abandonned handpump. Because the Afripump does not need spare parts, users can now start planning their lives and have safe water nearby.
Sustainable rural water supply needs a clear
understanding of the different responsabilities.
Here we see a handpump caretaker who supervises the water fetching
for a small monthy salary.
He has been authorized by the local governement to do this job and is happy with the reliable Afripump to sustain his business. Users are willing to pay for this service, as long as the pump does not break down.
An abandonned handpump near a public healthpost. Avoid
this to happen and introduce
the sustainable new Afripump in your projects.
The sustainable alternative is now available.
Local communities in Kenya are involved in tree planting programs to compensate for the CO2 emisions of the Western World, also in Africa.
It is an unconvenient truth to realize that to a large extend water project produced CO2 with
no sustainable results.
There is a growing concern that the WatSan Millennium goals are to ambitious and will never be achieved.
More and more Governments and the international donor community start to realize that especially for the the rural water supply the Millennium Goals will never be possible by the way that water projects have been organized in the past.
The donated handpumps are cheap but not sustainable. All studies show that the main reason that handpumps are abandoned within a few years after intallation, is that they break down whereas there are no spare parts and technical expertise available for repairs.
Although many projects train users in the maintenance of the handpumps and tried to create a spare part distribution chain, these measures did not provide the desired results for various reasons.
Therefore the actual situation is still alarming: most donor handpumps are still abandoned within 3 to 5 years after installation when left to the care of communities alone. The communities have no other choice but to wait for a new donor project to rehabiliate the borehole with a new handpump, but they know already that this will not solve their water problems in the future.
However, when a new, but similar, standard handpump is installed, the spare part and repair problems will soon force the community to go back again to their traditional water sources that are often un-protected and many kilomters from their homes.
Initially most donors and NGOs were reluctant to speak about this problem, because they felt accused of not doing their work properly in spite of all good intentions. It is understandable that a NGO prefer to proudly show in a report how many handpumps are installed with the funding, but is often doubtfull if those handpumps will be sustainable and will still function after some years.
On the other hand, it is also clear that this cycle of installing new handpumps over and over again in the same borehole is very costly and does not provide a sustainable solution for the community.
The problem is clear, but sofar no real solutions were available, quality handpumps like the Volanta for instance were considered as too expensive and selection of which handpump to use is often a matter of price.
The Afripump brings hope for the millennium goals
The new and cheap Afripump, a “spare parts free” handpump, is considered by international experts as a breakthrough in handpump design that can achieve sustainability of rural water supply at low cost.
With the Afripump a sustainable Operation & Maintenance schemes can be set up, in which the responsabilities of each of the players is clearly outlined.
When "good governance" rules are applied, the local governement is responsible for the planning, implementation and monitoring of the rural water supply and provide a legal framework for the Operation & Maintenance (O&M).
The local governement is also responsible for the monitoring of the performance and quality of the water supply.
Because the Afripump needs no spares to function, the maintenance is limited to cleaning of the pump and tightening of the bolts.
These activities can easily be done (or orgainzized) by a caretaker in a legalized "public - private arrangement" with the local governement. The salary for the caretaker is aggreed by the community and payed by a small contribution of the users (families as well as individuals) of the handpump.
Make the World a better place, also in Rural Africa
Handpumps and Climate Change
It is not something people will think about in the first place, if they see an abandonned handpump, but when the Carbon footprint of an average waterpoint with a handpump is calculated (including all project activities, travels, many 4x4's, diesel trucks, drilling rigs, production of the handpumps and pipes, etc. etc.) it corresponds with about an equivalent of 25 trees per pump, which equals 250 US$ for CO2 compensation measures per pump.
This means that in an average African country, where each year 250 to 500 handpumps are abandoned mainly due to missing spare parts, 50.000 US$ will be needed to plant at least 5 football fields with trees to compensate for the CO2 load that was produced by water projects, with no sustainable impact.
It is therefore recommended that new water projects
only use the sustainable Afripump technology.
This will contribute bring down unnecessary CO2 emissions and contribute to sustainability.