Eight organisations and the UN have combined to get clean water to a village near Nairobi

Huruma village, on the outskirts of Nairobi, will shortly get a regular supply of clean water. Nothing world shattering, you might think.
 

You would be wrong, though, because it has been achieved through a remarkable joint effort by three commercial businesses, two community-based organisations (CBOs), two public sector organisations, one NGO and UN Habitat.
 

If the project works and is sustainable in financial and water-extraction terms, then perhaps it is a model for collaboration here that can be replicated across Africa.
 

“The engineering is simple,” says Tom Mason of BioBox Eastern Africa. “The equipment has a long life-span, the consumables are widely available and it should be sustainable as the people running it can charge enough for the water to cover the ongoing running costs.”
 

The effort involved in coordinating nine different organisations might seem disproportionate to the outcome – but not if you are a resident of Huruma.
 

Not a rural idyll
 

Describing Huruma as a village could be misleading if it gives you an image of a rural idyll. This is basically a slum on the edge of the city, with a river running past it, hemmed in by a fenced-off forest on two sides. The smart suburb of Runda, where well-heeled UN employees enjoy spectacular accommodation, is on the other two sides.
 

The quest for clean water for Huruma was initiated by the wife of the British high commissioner who liked riding in the forest. She noticed the increased deforestation and the fact that poor security in the area was allowing several gangs to make it their base.
 

Knowing that this was one of the last forests in the area itself she used her connections to persuade various parties to sponsor the construction of a fence around the forest and interested the Kenya Forest Service in taking on its management.
 

The preservation of the forest had been secured but this in itself generated different problems.
 

Cut off
 

The fence cut the residents of Huruma off completely from their only source of clean water, which was obtained by tapping illegally into a water main that ran through the forest. In the past everyone had turned a blind eye to this – the hazard for the residents came from the gangs.
 

Enter the Muthaiga Residents Association and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta – neither of them your common or garden CBO or NGO. As Tom Mason tells it, a “diplomatic dinner party” led to the Muthaiga Residents Association taking on, as a charitable exercise, the management of a project to get clean water for Huruma.
 

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta and BioBox (http://www.biobox.co.ke) had been keen to install a water-purifying unit developed by Meckow International (http://www.meckow-international.com/) elsewhere in the city, so they had a unit to hand. The head of the order in Nairobi knew the British high commissioner’s wife (of course) and so the two projects came together.
 

UN Habitat agreed to put up the money for two more Meckow units – Huruma is very close to its Nairobi offices. The Athi Water Services Board (controller of water across Nairobi) was brought in as a partner and Kenya Forest Service gave up some of its land for the equipment to stand on.
 

The final pieces fell into place when Environmental Energy Enterprises (http://www.e3energy4all.co.za) supplied the ram pumps and the piping and the Friends of Huruma Village, a CBO, agreed to take over the ownership of the plant once the project was completed and then manage the distribution of (and charging for) the water.
 

Complex yet simple
 

So the genesis of the idea was complex and involved a range of well-connected people. But the idea is simple.
 

A weir was built on the river and pipes put into the pool that the weir created. These pipes lead to ram pumps – operated by the water pressure and needing no additional energy. The pumps drive the river water up to header tanks at the top of the village from where it drops down into the Meckow purification units. These sit on top of three large tanks that hold the clean water and feed a row of taps.
 

A fence surrounds this part of the project so that access is restricted to opening hours when the site is to be manned and the water is sold to the villagers.
 

Andrew Kluckow of Meckow International believes that this commercial aspect of the project is also important. “The main thing that I wanted was a project that is sustainable. I’ve seen too many projects where NGOs have gone in, done good work, then walked away and two years later the whole thing has come to a halt,” he says.
 

Kluckow argues that people can afford to pay for water, “especially if it is safe drinking water”. He says that the Friends of Huruma Village could decide to charge non-residents more than residents and then use any surplus money to do other things for the community – put in a crèche or a nursery school so that the mothers can go out to work.
 

Permit problems
 

There is still one outstanding problem. The project has been waiting for more than five months for the water extraction permit that it needs in order to operate legally. In the meantime the equipment is unused.
 

The head of excitement that had built up in the village has been largely dissipated. Some of the equipment needs servicing already as it is meant to be used rather than standing idle. But there is still a strong belief that, when the permit arrives, the project will work as planned.
 

And despite the complex relationships that were necessary to bring the project to fruition, Tom Mason explains that involving the commercial as well as the non-profit sectors was critically important. “The NGO/CBO element is imperative as they understand the local issues and the private sector is good at being given an order, and then getting the kit in quickly and efficiently,” he says.
 

UN Habitat, meanwhile, is hoping that if this project runs successfully for a year, it will be a contender for a sustainable technology award and it is also hoping to be able to roll it out across Africa.
 

Howard Sharman (howard.sharman@advanceaid.org) is a senior consultant with Advance Aid (http://www.advanceaid.org)