What is the problem in Sub-Saharan Africa?
Many External Support Agencies (ESAs) and Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) strive to meet United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which is set to “halve, by 2015, the proportion of population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation” (UN Report, 2010). However, over 40% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa consume water which is not safe for drinking.
The current approach is to build water pumps in rural areas, but this does not guarantee that the MDG will be achieved. The reasons for this are both low coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa and high failure rates of the existing pumps. Studies indicate that more than half of hand pumps constructed in Africa become not operational soon after installation (Harvey and Reed, 2003). This means that if the problem of sustainability of the pumps is not addressed, the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to have limited or no access to drinking water.
Currently, most of the pumps are manufactured outside Africa (mostly in India and Pakistan) and some of the designs are relatively complex. When pumps break down, most communities lack the knowledge required to fix them. Moreover, the spare parts for the pumps are not readily available and villagers cannot afford to buy them. The solution is, therefore, to alter the design of the pumps, so that they use locally sourced materials, which are both cheap and easy to obtain. The design itself needs to be simpler, so that the villagers can understand how the pumps work and how to fix them. For this to happen, the pumps must be built at the villages, where communities can participate in the construction process. Another crucial improvement is to make the pumps more durable, which will prevent frequent failures.
From the brief description above, it can be seen that the problem is interdisciplinary and all fields are interconnected. You can read more about each of the areas by clicking on the following links:
Sustainability
Community
Technology
The current approach is to build water pumps in rural areas, but this does not guarantee that the MDG will be achieved. The reasons for this are both low coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa and high failure rates of the existing pumps. Studies indicate that more than half of hand pumps constructed in Africa become not operational soon after installation (Harvey and Reed, 2003). This means that if the problem of sustainability of the pumps is not addressed, the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to have limited or no access to drinking water.
Currently, most of the pumps are manufactured outside Africa (mostly in India and Pakistan) and some of the designs are relatively complex. When pumps break down, most communities lack the knowledge required to fix them. Moreover, the spare parts for the pumps are not readily available and villagers cannot afford to buy them. The solution is, therefore, to alter the design of the pumps, so that they use locally sourced materials, which are both cheap and easy to obtain. The design itself needs to be simpler, so that the villagers can understand how the pumps work and how to fix them. For this to happen, the pumps must be built at the villages, where communities can participate in the construction process. Another crucial improvement is to make the pumps more durable, which will prevent frequent failures.
From the brief description above, it can be seen that the problem is interdisciplinary and all fields are interconnected. You can read more about each of the areas by clicking on the following links:
Sustainability
Community
Technology