Video: why communities prefer durable handpumps

FairWater promotes sustainable BlueZones in Africa
and rehabilitation of broken down handpumps
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We use the rock-solid, reliable Dutch BluePump
installed by professional local partners
we create local jobs and reliable water supply
at the lowest costs for the users

Click here to know more about FairWater Projects in Africa 

FairWater replaces broken down handpumps in Africa with the reliable BluePump. We make BlueZones and support professional local Water Service Providers (WSP) in collaboration with our partner organizations in Africa (Oxfam, UNICEF, IRD, ASAP, CSC, ADRA, Samatarian Purse, etc.).

The FairWater BlueZone approach is straightforward and evidence based; all our projects are presented on this website with the names of the sponsors. Sponsors pay a fixed price of € 2.500,- per BluePump and can have their logo and own page as well.

With the FairWater BlueZone approach, we create safe & sustainable water points that can be maintained at very low cost for the users. At the same time, we create long term jobs in Africa.

Why is funding still needed?
Good question, you probably know that over the last decades, billions of US$ have already been donated for many water projects, but do you also know how effective this was? Which part was really spent on helping people to get secure and sustainable water points? What is the situation?

Most donated handpumps don't work anymore 

Over 350.000 handpumps have been installed in Africa, but UNICEF/ SKAT data show that in most countries 40% to sometimes up to over 70% of these handpumps are abandoned. Most of the abandoned pumps are so-called "VLOM" pumps made in India. VLOM means that the community should maintain them without external support.

These VLOM pumps are rather cheap (... most NGOs prefer cheap pumps ...), but apparently not reliable enough to be used in an African community. Evidence shows that these VLOM pumps don't last. Due to frequent repairs and missing spare parts these pumps become a nuisance for the users and very expensive or impossible to maintain. It is expected that within a decade, most of these VLOM handpumps in Africa don't work anymore.

Conclusion 1.
It is not fair of NGOs to impose such fragile VLOM pumps to the communities.

Conclusion 2.
Sponsors of water projects should be more careful how their funding is used.

What is the best way forward?
Most of the broken VLOM pumps are installed in wells that can still be used. In most cases, it is sufficient to take out the broken VLOM pump and install a reliable BluePump. That is an easy operation and can be done in a few hours because the BluePump fits directly on the base of most VLOM pumps.

The FairWater rehabilitation approach is therefore fast and cost-effective, while the combination of a reliable BluePump with a clearly defined regional support  structure such as a Water Service Provider (WSP) company makes it sustainable as well, at low cost.

  Let the people decide what is best for them ... 
do NOT imposing fragile VLOM pumps ...

What about the MDG's??
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) hoped to improve the water situations by the year 2015, through a massive funding injection from many donors. Thousand of new India VLOM pumps were again donated. Evaluations show that in some countries the situation has temporarily improved. Obvious, only temporarily; after a few years also these recent VLOM pumps will break down and the situation will be the same again. Click here for the report. 

Even worse, there is evidence that as soon as this new funding will stop, the water situation in most countries will soon even be worse than before.

It is rather obvious, that as long as you do not solve the key maintenance problems, also these new pumps will be abandoned soon. Statistics are hard to beat, also in Africa. It's all about reliability at low recurrent cost for the users, that creates sustainable water supply. It is not about how much funding you can raise with a flashy fundraising campaign, it is how you use the funding most effective.

Problems are even bigger in deep groundwater. In areas with deeper groundwater the handpump failure rate can be even over 80%. In such zones every drop counts, alternative water points are far away and often polluted. In other words, the situation in Africa becomes more critical every day; most of the water pumps that are still working are only those that are recently installed.  The future of rural Africa evaporates and becomes a fata morgana...

Thee is an underlying, even deeper problem to solve...
A recent UNICEF / SKAT study is amazingly open about handpump maintenance problems:

 ... "However, not only has progress been slow, but, more shamefully, many of the constructed services have not continued to work over time"....

... "Thousands of people, who once benefited from a safe drinking water supply, now walk past broken handpumps or taps and on to their traditional, dirty water point. Despite the best intentions, the fact is that we, sector professionals and practitioners, have contributed towards the problem in numerous ways" ...

The same report also highlights the underlying main problem, which is that NGOs have now become experts on fundraising for water aid projects, but have no interest whatsoever to improve and invest in more sustainable solutions. Many NGOs focus on fundraising and business as usual, not on evaluating how they could perform better. 

 ... "Nevertheless, most of us carry on as before. A rehabilitation programme tends to use the same management and maintenance principles and training"....

If water projects continue to impose fragile VLOM pumps, Africa will turn into a handpump graveyard. This would mean that in 2030 NGOs will still ask funding for never ending Water Aid projects.

Environmental pressure: Apart from a lack of transparency and poor results, the never ending project activities, logistics, rusting materials, wasted energy, fund rasing for Water Aid projects, travels up and down to endless meetings and conferences to discuss the water problems in Africa... This all adds to the unnecessary pressure on the environment and calls for a new, innovative and more sustainable approach in Water Aid projects.

Why do handpumps break down ?
In Africa, most handpumps break down due to relatively simple problems. One of the main problems is caused by such "simple" parts like a rubber seal on the pluger of the pump (see picture). It may be just a "simple" rubber seal, but it is very difficult to replace, because it is located deep inside the well. Therefore the whole pump must be taken apart and sooner or later the re-installation goes wrong. To make matters worse, many of those "simple" part are often not locally available, do not fit right or are put in wrongly. The result is that the handpump is doesn't pump water anymore after a while and is abandoned.

Statistics show that handpumps in Africa have an average life-time of about 3 to 5 years; This means, that each year about 10.000 handpumps need to be replaced, which is an equivalent loss of funding of about 150.000.000 US$ per year, or nearly 500.000 US$ per day..

Girl showing the main problem; the rubber seal on the plunger ...

The majority of the handpumps that work are from recent projects.
Obviously, NGOs don't like to talk about this; they should know by now that most of their handpumps are not sustainable. Until recently, there was no alternative and they could do little about it. They had to deal with the available handpumps made in India, so they had no choice....

Typical picture: all over Africa you find broken India VLOM pumps

The NGOs just ask again for funding, year after year
to install more fragile VLOM pumps that don't last
to continue like this will not solve the maintenance problem
so how can we stop this wasting of funds....???

FairWater has a solution that works: The BlueZone
The good news is, that FairWater, with the help of several NGOs (Oxfam, UNICEF, IRD, ASAP, CSC, etc.) developed a new handpump maintenance concept that provides a safe & reliable water supply at very low cost for the users: The BlueZone Approach.

In a BlueZone there is one service provider who installs and maintains the Dutch & reliable FairWater BluePump an innovative handpump that is very reliable and can lift water by hand from up to 100m deep.

There are now already several BlueZones in Africa with over 500 BluePumps, sponsored by major NGOs Oxfam (Kenya), UNICEF (Mozambique), ADRA (Niger), UNDP (Tanzania and Gambia), Global Water Resources (Tanzania), and many smaller NGOs.

The BluePump is extreamly strong and reliable and can be maintained at low-cost without the need for such a critical spare part as a "simple" rubber seal. The BluePump is therefore now considered by international experts as the most suitable and vertile community handpump for Africa for all depth. The BluePump is mainly used in so called "BlueZones", where a professional organization takes care of installation and maintenance. Therefore the BluePump is rapidly becoming popular with the users and with serious NGOs, due to a high water output, light pumping, reliable operation and professional low-cost back up in case of a "Murphy" problem.

Happy kids using a FairWater BluePump from a depth of 65m in Mozambique

Unique innovative Sponsor Concept
Together with the inroduction of a sustainable concept for community water supply, FairWater also developed an unique and innovative sponsor concept to lower the cost for the communities. To do so, the Cap of the BluePump can be used for advertising or for any message for the community or for a sponsor logo. For instance a donor that would like to advertise a health related subjects like Aids Prevention, could sponsor a BluePump near a hospital or school and put his message on the cap. This is highly effective, because a water point is always a focus point in a community and people will see the message every day.

This also offers excellent business opportunities for Mobile Phone companies or Banks,
who want to have their name well known in the rural areas and at the same time
want to improve on otheir corporate image by providing water.

The message can be either screened or painted on the cap or put on the frontside of the pump on a plate that is secured on the cap with 4 rivets.

EEPC advertising on a BluePump for a school in Burkina Faso

The FairWater cost-effective rehabilitation approach
The most cost-effective way to help communities with sustainable water supply is to rehabilitate broken down handpumps and not to drill new expensive boreholes. Imagine, to make a new borehole cost between 10.000 to 20.000 US$, but with a rehabiliation, the old borehole can still be used and only the price of the pump and installation needs to be paid.

FairWater therefore has a focus on rehabilitation of abandoned handpumps with the BluePump, on the specific request of active communities that wants their handpump to work and are ready to pay a liitle for a maintenance contract in case of Murphy problems. Depending on the number of users, the average maintenance cost of the BluePump will be less than 10 US$ per family per year.

Information about Water & Sanitation (WatSan) issues
On our watsan.com website FairWater also offers easy access to more WatSan information for the industry and discussion to share and discuss online WatSan topics on the WatSan information pages. 

If you want WatSan News or information to share...

go to www.watsan.com
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You can also become a FairWater Partner and sponsor a BuePump, contact us.

FairWater Foundation

Keizersgracht 676 
1017 ET Amsterdam 
The Netherlands
Phone +31 (0)20 - 260 1171

Email to: info@fairwater.org

"It is unwise to pay too much, but it is worse to pay too little. 
When you pay too much; you lose a little money - that is all. 
When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything
because it was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do".
- - -
"The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot
 - it cannot be done -.  If you deal with the lowest bidder it is well to
add something for the risk you run, and if you accept that
you might as well pay some more for something better".

John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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Please note
Fairwater has changed early 2010 the name of its handpump design into "BluePump" and that we do not use or recommend to use by anyone the old name of our handpump anymore to avoid confusion with the existing Afridev public domain handpump.