Well that transformed life in Kenyan village

Five years ago, the village of Runana gained access to running water with Finland's support – a lot of things have changed since then. Earlier, the people in the village had to fetch their drinking and household water from kilometres away. Today, they can buy water from water kiosks situated in various parts of the village.

Peter Nganga hopes to receive funding to develop further the village water system. Foto: Hanna Päivärinta

"The water project is of utmost importance to us: homes have access to clean water, and agriculture and animal husbandry have also benefited from it. Water has made it possible to set up new kinds of businesses and children have better opportunities for studying as their time is not taken up by fetching water," says Peter Nganga who is responsible for the functioning of the water system.

Runana is a village in the Kikuyu township, some 40 kilometres north-west of Nairobi.  A river running some eight kilometres from the village is the nearest surface water in the area.

Goodbye to bent backs

The adults that live in the village had to fetch water from eight kilometres away when they were young. This has left its mark on many old people: a bent back. Over the recent years, before the borehole well, the villagers fetched their water from a shopping centre two kilometres away. Queuing for water could take several hours.

With Finland's support, the village put in place a 300 metres deep borehole well. An electronic pump pushes water through a pipe into a 100-cubic-metre tank on top of a hill. The villagers also set up five water kiosks which sell water for most of the people in the village. A hundred households have access to running water.

The building of three toilets and hygiene training made for the villagers made part of the project, completed in 2012.

The water system benefits some 7,000 people in the area. The households with tap water have access to running water for 4–6 hours  a day during six days a week. Water is not available on Sundays, as the water tank must be filled once a week and this takes 24 hours.

Xynthia Wanjrvu is happy for having easier access to water. Photo: Hanna Päivärinta

Future plans are ready

 "We no longer need to wake up early in the morning to fetch water and to do the same thing again after school. This leaves us more time to study," says Xynthia Wanjrvu, a young woman who intends to start information and communications technology studies in the autumn.

A greenhouse set up by the village youth is an example of the new kind of businesses. Young adults grow tomatoes for sale in the neighbouring areas. The young entrepreneurs cannot afford an electric pump and which is why they use a pedal pump to bring water to the greenhouse.

The people in the village are happy for not having to devote their time and energy for fetching water from far away. Even the schools in the area benefit from the running water. There remains room for improvement, however:

"The pump runs with electricity which is expensive. The supply of water is also hampered by power cuts. We have an idea: we should acquire solar panels to produce electricity for the pump. The water storage system should also be expanded so that we could provide more water to the households and maybe also distribute it to the neighbouring village," says Peter Nganga.

Hanna Päivärinta
The writer works as a Communications Officer at the Department for Communications of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

Finland has supported the development of water supply and sanitation systems in Kenya since the 1980s. At that time, only 30 per cent of Kenyans had access to clean water.

Water tank in Runana provides water six days per week. Photo: Alex Kamweru

Work was started in western Kenya, but since 2009, Finland's support has been distributed to various parts of the country through Kenya's Water Supply Fund. In 2009–2013, Finland participated in the financing of projects that were managed by rural communities and village associations themselves. Thanks to the programme, more than 106,000

people in the countryside have now access to improved water distribution and sanitation systems. Also, the number of conflicts relating to water has diminished in these areas.

Kenya's new constitution, adopted in 2010, placed responsibility for the organising of water services and management of water resources on the country's 47 counties. The reform makes part of a wider reorganisation of regional administration, with the aim of bringing decision-making and services closer to the citizens.

The counties face a lot of work.  Although Kenya's water services have over the past decades been expanded, still almost half of the country's population does not have access to clean water. In addition, population growth and climate change have increased the pressures on water services and resources. In the countryside – where most of the people live – the situation is worse than in the cities: 46 per cent of the rural population is still using raw water from rivers, lakes and other sources of water. In cities, the corresponding figure is 17 per cent. The situation is also different in different parts of the country.

 In order to improve especially the situation among the rural communities, Finland and Sweden started a new water programme to support the counties this year. The budget of the four-year programme is EUR 16.8 million, of which Finland's share is EUR 7 million. The programme will select six counties and place particular effort on ways to improve access to water services and sanitation among the poorest people. At the same time, the objective is to ensure that the counties manage their water resources in a sustainable manner – so that there will be water for future generations as well.

Milma Kettunen
The writer works as a Team Leader at the Department for Africa and the Middle East of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

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