Sanitation as a business in Malawi – the poor will have to wait

Malawian sanitation entrepreneur Martius using “The Gulper” to empty a pit latrine. Photo: Water for People

Providing toilets to the poorest may be “dear to the hearts of many non-profits, aid agencies and governments” but if you want to involve business you have to start with the better-off families first. So says business woman and sanitation entrepreneur Towera Jalakari who runs a pit emptying service in Blantyre, Malawi.

“We will get to Everyone in Blantyre one day, but the only way to make sure Blantyre actually solves its sanitation problems is to recognize that the market must function.  [...]  As we get better, as we scale city-wide, then costs will come down, services will improve, and pressure will build for all people to have a toilet.  We will get to the poorest, but they are not our first targets.  [...] If we rush too fast [...] then the poor will not have lasting services but rather a lot of useless toilets and nowhere to go to the bathroom.”

Malawi is one the countries in Water for People’s Sanitation as a Business program (2010-2014), which is funded by a US$ 5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Water for People has contracted Tools for Enterprise & Education Consultants (TEECs) to support pit emptying businesses in Lilongwe and Blantyre.

Africa: Access to Water and Privatisation

On 29 July 2010, the General Assembly of the United Nations recognised, in a proposed resolution by Bolivia and adopted by 122 votes with 41 abstentions, ‘the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.’ The resolution also calls upon ‘states and international organizations to provide financial resources, capacity-building and technology transfer, in particular to developing countries’.

It was a historical decision. But what explains the need to proclaim this right is that it is barely respected around the world. Despite UN recognition it is a right that is far from being realised in most parts of the world, writes Jacques Cambon of Pambazuka News.

Read the full article

Source: Fahamu / allAfrica.com, 9 June 2011

Ghana: Don’t Renew Aqua Vitens Rand Contract

People across all walks of life have passionately appealed to the President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, as a matter of urgency, not to renew the water management contract with Aqua Vitens Rand. According to them, the company has worsened the urban water situation in the country.

Aqua Vitens Rand, which has a five-year management contract and would expire in May this year, has not lived up to the expectations of the Ghanaian consumers.

Read the full story

Source: Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanaian Chronicle / allAfrica.com, 26 April 2011

Kenya: pay toilet entrepeneur features in US documentary

The three young college graduates are the subject of “The New Recruits,” a fascinating PBS documentary, which aired on US television on 15 June 2010. The film chronicles their yearlong adventure with “social entrepreneurship,” a philosophy that combines humanitarianism and capitalism to fight global poverty.

The young entrepreneurs are Suraj Sudhakar who sold pay-toilet services in Kenya, Heidi Krauel who peddled solar-powered lights in India, and Joel Montgomery who pushed drip irrigation in Pakistan.

The trio was trained by the Acumen Fund, a nonprofit group that believes free enterprise is the best way to help Third World countries. The film is narrated by Rainn Wilson of NBC’s “The Office” and directed by Jeremy Newberger, Seth Kramer and Daniel A. Miller, who earlier made “The Linguists.”

Sudhakar’s story is the most compelling — and depressing.

Suraj Sudhakar. Photo: PBS

In a slum outside Nairobi, pigs, dogs, chickens and humans scurry across huge mounds of garbage. The area lacks a sanitation system, making it what one local calls an “open defecation zone.”

The company that Sudhakar works for, Ecotact, installs pay toilets that cost about eight cents per visit. A “World Toilet Day” featuring a speech by Kenya’s minister of public health and sanitation is held to publicize the facilities. A comedian entertains the crowd with one-liners such as, “Did you just make a big one or a small one?”

In order to create a high-class image, the company opens the first toilets in the city’s business district. “Don’t forget us,” pleads a small group of children in the slums. Sudhakar promises to come back.

[...]

The film says only 50 percent of social entrepreneur jobs survive their first four years. Yet by the end of the film, Krauel and Montgomery are seeking new opportunities to sell to the poor and Suhakar has enthusiastically returned to Kenya, where he now is project manager for Peepoople, an organization that provides hygienic sanitation.

Source: Bloomberg, 15 Jun 2010

See below a Global Water Challenge (GWC) video about Ecotact.

Kenya: High Investment Costs Put Off Investors

Nairobi — The huge investment required to rehabilitate sewerage management infrastructure in the coast region may not come as soon as hoped, unless private investors venture into the sector, say experts.

They say that the low capacity in the country to convert waste into an economic gain has made financiers shy away from injecting cash into the sewage management sector, despite its potential.

Mr Maro Andy Tola, the Coast Water Services Board (CWSB) acting chief executive officer, said sewage management requires very huge investments which without converting into an economic activity, is hard to acquire, since raw sewer has a very poor rate of return that cannot attract financiers.

Economic activities

“We shall require major participation by the private sector who should invest in ways of converting sewage into economic activities to give the sector a high rate of return,” Mr Tola said. The Coast Water Board for instance requires over Sh2 billion to rehabilitate its sewage infrastructure.

Currently, the infrastructure is owned by the Municipal Council of Mombasa and is leased to CWSB at a fee that is supposed to be used to develop infrastructure now over 50 years old and prone to frequent breakdown. Sewer pipes in the Coast region have major leaks that discharge raw sewer into the ocean, which has subsequently affected growth of mangrove trees and annihilated crucial marine life.

This has put CWSB and the Mombasa Water Services Company in the bad books of the environment regulator, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). Last Friday, after touring dilapidated sewerage infrastructure, provincial director of environment Mr Isaiah Kyengo said the authority would sue the two companies for neglecting treatment plants which had resulted in the discharge of pollutants into the Indian Ocean.

NEMA had given the board a notice – which was issued last year and expired two weeks ago – to repair several pumping sites but nothing had been done, he said. However, rehabilitating the dilapidated sewerage infrastructure is proving a headache for the CWSB, which although it has procured Sh7 billion from donors, will only have Sh220 million channelled to the sewage project, while the rest will go to water infrastructure, also a major problem in the region.

The World Bank and French Development Agency will provide the fund, which will also be used to rehabilitate Baricho Water Works, Mzima Springs, Marere and Tiwi Borehole – the four main sources of water for Mombasa and its environs. The Sh220 million for sewerage will be used to rehabilitate Kipevu sewage treatment plant, which has not been in use for several years now as a result of sewer pipes breakdown.

Kipevu, Mr Tola said, is supposed to process raw sewage and rehabilitation works are expected to start in April this year. “The contactor for the project has already been identified and we are in the process of procuring a supervisory consultant,” Mr Tola said, adding that the project will be completed after one year.

Lack of space

Due to lack of space at Kizingo treatment plant, the board plans to spend Sh400 million for the development of a pumping station at the site. “Land is very expensive here, since it is within the island and with this station, we will be able to pump sewage to Kipevu for treatment,” said Mr Tola.

The other problem some of the water companies in the region face is that they are not attractive to financial lenders for infrastructure development because they are not economically viable units. The Ministry of Water and Irrigation has proposed to merge the seven water companies into two to make them viable.

Source: Gitonga Marete and Githua Kihara, The Nation / allAfrica.com, 4 April 2010

Africa: Water for People announces investment from Case Foundation to scale-up innovative rural water service models

Expanded effort to be based on social entrepreneurship, local involvement to provide multiple, sustainable water solutions.

Water For People has announced a transformative investment from the Case Foundation to accelerate and expand its efforts to provide innovative, sustainable water solutions in Africa. This investment will be used to expand Water For People’s programs, using local entrepreneurs to provide sustainable operations and maintenance support for a portfolio of community water solutions in Malawi, Rwanda, and Uganda.

Water For People’s expansion efforts will be focused first in Malawi, then in Rwanda and Uganda, to stimulate and scale up innovative models using the local private sector’s capacity to provide on-going operation, maintenance and repair services for an array of community water technologies. This will include an expansion of Water For People’s successful “circuit rider” program, where communities hire local entrepreneurs for effective operations and maintenance services that enhance water source sustainability.

As part of these efforts, PlayPumps International – U.S. will be contributing its inventory of manufactured pumps to Water For People. The combined, new resources total roughly $2M of funds, assets, and in-kind support, complementing almost $2M of direct funding from Water For People’s program base in Africa.

Water For People will use the resources to accelerate and expand its programs around the following core elements:

Engagement of the private sector. A key goal of the program is to unleash the power of the local private sector as a resource for community development. Initially focused on Water For People’s existing program in Malawi, and then expanding to Rwanda, Uganda and elsewhere over time, Water For People will offer proven entrepreneurial approaches, training and capacity building of local private sector partners to service a market for the ongoing operation, maintenance, and repair of community water systems. The program will also demonstrate ways that the local private sector can play a key role in eradicating water poverty.

Deployment of safe water system technologies coupled with innovative operation and maintenance approaches. Rural villages will be offered a portfolio of safe water system technologies (e.g. hand pumps, rope pumps, PlayPumps, etc.) in order to “road test” opportunities for scale. Private sector approaches for operation and maintenance of these systems a key element of sustainability will also be implemented. The emphasis will be on proven models, such as the use of local, independent contractors, or “circuit riders,” to service water infrastructure and ensure sustainable supply chains.

Long-Term Monitoring. Water For People is incorporating its long-term, 10-year community monitoring initiative into this program, utilizing the World Water Corps® volunteer program. World Water Corps® volunteers will offer professional and technical support including mapping, baseline data for development, capacity building for local stakeholders, and monitoring and evaluation of past and current projects.

Source: Water For People, 27 Oct 2009

Ghana, Upper West: US$ 5.8 million spent on sanitation-related diseases

Sanitation-related diseases accounted for about GH¢8.6 million [US$ 5.8 million] of money spent in the treatment of diseases reported to health facilities in the Upper West Region [in 2008] and thereby strained the finances of the various Mutual Health Insurance schemes. Out of this amount about GH¢7,427,351 [US$ 5 million] was spent on patients on admission while GH¢1,254,117 [US$ 0.85 million] took care of out patients. These diseases are malaria, acute respiratory infections and diarrhoea.

Alhaji Abu Yahaya, Chairman of the Upper West Regional Health Committee who disclosed this at Wa on [13 June 2009] said during the period, 208,309 patients reported at these facilities with malaria while 29,494 patients and 10,537 patients suffered from acute respiratory infections and diarrhoea respectively.

Speaking when he presided at the closing session of a one-week course for Sanitation Guards drawn from the Wa Municipality, Wa East, Wa West and Sissala East Districts, he noted that these diseases were 90% preventable if the people changed their behaviour and attitude to sanitation. He called on the government to invest heavily in sanitation in order to arrest the huge money that was constantly expended on medical care and the man-hours lost as a result of diseases that could be prevented.

Mr. Emmanuel Volsuri, Regional Operations Supervisor of Zoom Lion Ghana Limited said 90 Sanitation Guards had so far been trained in the region and provided with the necessary logistics and bicycles and uniform to enhance their work. He said Zoom Lion organized the training programme to impart in the participants the relevant skills and knowledge to carry their duties effectively. The Guards are expected to assist Environmental Health Officers in hygiene education and promotion, premise inspection, dissemination of sanitary information, supervision and monitoring of sanitation services.

Waste collection bicycle. Zoomlion Ghana Ltd.

Source: GNA, Ghana Business News, 14 Jun 2009

Africa’s water funds threatened by economic crisis

African water services must raise billions of dollars from the private sector annually to meet rising demand and U.N. development goals as the global financial crisis threatens investment, experts said.

[...] At a meeting [Financing Water for Growth in Africa, Dakar, 26-27 November 2008, organised by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA)] [...] experts acknowledged the impact the global financial crisis could have on funding.

“It’s going to be more difficult to raise all kinds of … commercial and private sector finance, and it may even be more difficult to raise aid in future,” water sector and development specialist James Winpenny said.

[...] “We’re hearing encouraging noises from the donor side, saying they’re going to maintain funding,” said Alex Rugamba from the African Development Bank.

“Certainly in the short run we may see a dip (in private funding). The cost of borrowing will go up.”

[Nevertheless], “if present policies prevail, by 2030 another billion people will live in areas without enough water,” said an OECD statement.

Africa needed around $2.5 billion a year to improve water and sanitation services [some of which] could be found through better management of existing African resources, including by reducing losses from water pipes, which at around 35 percent are nearly twice the international standard.

[...] Over half a dozen water companies from across Africa met in Dakar earlier this week and received “shadow credit ratings”.

Source: Alistair Thomson, Reuters, 26 Nov 2008