Reliable Water Matters
When I started this work at The Water Project over ten years ago, I did so because a solution to some of the world’s hardest problems finally seemed within reach. Leading up to this, seemingly intractable issues of poverty, hunger, and lack of education all seemed too big to tackle as an individual. What impact could my gift have? Could it really make a meaningful difference?
As I was introduced to the water crisis and to community-sized water interventions, there appeared to be a relatively simple, inexpensive, and yet foundational solution in reach. A community-sized water point like a well could significantly address many of the larger problems facing rural villages on their road to growth and development. This promise of water was seemingly unmistakable and impossible to ignore. I was hooked and determined to bring others along with me in discovering how to enable more of this important work.
What has proven true, is that the gift of water is indeed remarkable in its scope. Providing clean, safe water unlocks vast human potential. I see it every day. If you want to make an impact in the lives of women and girls especially, water is the key. I remain convinced that there is no better first step to getting involved in helping folks grow themselves out of poverty.
Clean water only matters when it’s more reliable than the swamp
Over the past decade, I’ve discovered that this work is certainly not simple. Water is tough. There is far more to actually realizing the full promise of water than installing a bit of hardware in a deep hole. What we have found at The Water Project is that the entire effort stands or falls on one word — reliability. Absolutely nothing changes if a new water source doesn’t work every day, year after year. Perceptions about the value of water certainly aren’t improved when the swamp or local infested scoop hole remains the one truly reliable source of water as compared to a repeatedly broken-down hand pump.
A girl’s dreaming into her future career depends on the reliability of clean water. It’s not until the regular availability and safety of a water source is proven to her over time that she will be freed to imagine a life in which fetching water fades into the past. Only when a farmer or local artisan can count on being healthy, with access to clean water can they begin to deepen their investment in growing businesses. If you can’t count on water, you can’t count on anything else. Reliable and safe water unlocks the imagination of a better future, and imagination births progress.
Everything breaks
The truth is, everything breaks. It’s no secret. You and I know this from our own experience. Computers crash, our cars need constant attention, utilities to our home are being maintained all of the time and when they do fail it’s as if the world stopped. Mechanical systems need mechanics. Climate changes, drought and floods, change how water points function. Day 1 solutions may not work on day 498 when local leadership has changed hands or when the economy has dipped. Parts we rely on don’t always last. Good service requires good supplies. We have learned these lessons. Water systems, no matter how simple, need care.
Even still, increasingly I’ve noticed otherwise well-meaning folks and organizations who seem to completely ignore this simple fact of life. There is an assumption beneath the language they choose, as they explain their work, that belies either a purposeful naïveté or an unwillingness to address the truth of troubled water points. Less experienced actors in the field are likely only parroting former and now disproven theories of “sustainability”. Some still claim to vaguely “train locals” or “organize committees”, imagining that somehow asking folks to manage their own water point, with no prior mechanical knowledge, is a dependable solution. That doesn’t always work. If it was a viable, efficient option, we would have no need of plumbers, carpenters or electricians here at home. Instead we’ve all learned that specialists do better work and are necessary when one critical system serves hundreds. For those orgs that have been over this ground and still claim cheap once-and-done interventions are valuable, the motivation to do so becomes questionable.
It’s time assumptions changed and truths are acknowledged. Making water last is hard work.
Another study came across my desk today that once again put hard numbers next to what we already know to be true from our own experience here at The Water Project. In our work, we come across broken down or abandon water points nearly every day. Local folks always know the story of who came in, built a well, and left. Often times these water points functioned for just a few months before failing.
We began “adopting” many of these water points into our regional water programs through well rehabs and re-drills early on. These water points had each been left behind with the assumption that nothing would ever go wrong, or that the local community could handle any repairs. Instead, The Water Project picked up where others never should have left off. We’re now making the most crucial investment in these water points… making them reliable.
Addressing the water crisis without making it worse
In this survey (above), of 112 districts in Uganda, it was found that less than 25% of installed hand pumps met the definition of a fully functional and reliable well. That number is staggering. Less than 1 in 4 wells can pump water throughout the year. I’ll wager that wasn’t the promise made by the organizations that installed them.
These stats, and many former studies like it, speak in undeniable terms of the next water crisis. The crisis of broken promises. Perhaps even more insidious than the current water crisis, this fast burgeoning crisis of trust will be one that reveals the failure of reporting and resolution. It will prove that one-off walk-away water projects hurt more than help. Because as each of these now broken or abandoned projects was installed, the world crossed a community off its list of “need”. The number of people in need of clean, safe water appeared to shrink. In this one case in Uganda, it’s possible 100% of the broken wells noted in the survey are still counted as “improved access” in the UN SDG Goals. Thousands of people are assumed to be served but aren’t, and the incentive to return to help them is now gone. And so, the next crisis will be born from progress that was falsely claimed as final and secure. It has proven to be neither. Studies like this are damning evidence that we may actually be deeper into the current water crisis than we imagine.
When I tune into Twitter and see claims that “$40 can provide water FOR LIFE” the larger problem becomes frustratingly and crystal clear. There are still far too many water “professionals” who believe or simply want to believe that the water crisis can be solved with one-off, walk-away interventions. There is a false assumption that once water flows, it will always flow. That understanding is simply not based in the reality you and I both know. Leaders in the water sector owe it to each other and to the people we serve to stop making claims that have been untested, or worse yet, outright disproven. Or, if you have discovered the magic beans of water work… share them.
In the ten years we’ve been at this, we’ve tried so-called water committees, providing tools, engaging local leaders, adding fancy gizmos that talk to cell towers, and other interventions exploring possibilities for the lowest cost, least impact solution to water points that fail. What we learned, through trial and error, is that healthy relationship is the key at every step to successful monitoring and repair of water points. Healthy relationship means regular check-ups. It’s a commitment to remain in an area, with local professional teams. It’s phone calls, on-site visits, and text messages asking if a community’s water point is working, and that if it’s not, reminding them that it should be and that there are folks to help get it back online, quickly. The committees and gizmos are additive and helpful in some cases, wildly successful in others. But, we’d know about neither without rigorous relational reporting.
We intend to break the cycle of one-off fixes and rehabs — repeated by various orgs over time in any one spot — that leads to an expectation of failure and an unhealthy dependence on this routine born from neglect.
Interdependence Matters
When we get this right, local relationship breeds trust and a healthy, interdependent network of communities and local water professionals, private mechanics, and entrepreneurs emerges. It’s a network of service that you and I take for granted here at home. We think it’s both possible and necessary where we serve.
Our role then is to create the initial environments and expectations of water reliability that foster these networks for the long term. Our role diminishes as these successful local support businesses are established. But it takes time and sustained investment to overcome years of broken promises. Arbitrary grant periods or disengagement targets won’t address the need to prove a system can and should be reliable. That just takes time.
It’s possible for us to move toward this vision thanks in part to our geographic focus, a choice we made to concentrate and commit to a specific group of people. Multiple, regionally centered partners and teams each bring a breadth of community knowledge and the desire to learn from one another. Years of hard work led us to recognize where we failed, and importantly where our relational approach uniquely positions us to iterate over new solutions as needed. A decade of building trust among our teams now means folks are willing try new innovative approaches when asked, knowing their best interests alongside the communities they serve are always at the fore.
Our vision for this next chapter is truly addressing the roots of the new water crisis directly, through shared public and private cooperatives. We’re calling them “Regional Service Hubs” for now. With each, we’ll work to establish supply chains with fairly priced and high-quality parts. We’ll train and equip the first teams of local full-time mechanics who are given access to a large and sustainable “customer base”. We’ll subsidize early or catastrophic repairs in “adopted” communities, when needed, so that individual communities have a chance to build trust in their systems and the teams maintaining them. We’ll also continue to coordinate with local governments and to assist in providing solutions and services among schools and medical clinics.
This is how we will keep our commitment of reliability and trust, expressed through The Water Promise we have made to the hundreds of communities to whom we are responsible. It’s going to cost a lot more than $40 a person and I honestly can’t tell you if this will work for life. Frankly, that would be ridiculous, and we all know it.
Call Out the Consequence of Cheap and Champion the Dignity of Truth
Your voice is crucial here. Whether you’re a fellow leader in this work, one of the trusted champions on the front lines providing water every day, or you’re the foundation of this work, a donor, we need your voice. As we do this together, I’m asking you to keep asking more questions. When you come across a claim about providing water that seems too good to be true, call it out. Ask how a five-year-old organization can honestly claim that their solutions last a lifetime. Dig in and understand what the real costs should be over time. This serves the people we serve every day. It affords them the dignity of truth. There are some great tools to check on the real cost of things if you’re interested. One of my favorites is here: http://washcost.ircwash.org/en/calculators
Next, question the numbers… always. Demand a recount before the world moves onto another issue, and force a “recall” of the many failed water points installed in the last ten years. It’s probably not going to be popular, but it will best serve those who stand to be otherwise forgotten.
For our part, we will continue to be 100% accountable and transparent. Login to our website or app and see all of our water projects and follow every check-up visit. You can see, as of today, what works and what doesn’t. For years, our supporters have afforded us the freedom to expose everything, fix what breaks, revisit past work, and to re-invest when needed (sometimes in full) so that we can keep The Water Promise. If you’re a professional fundraiser and worry that sharing failure will cost you repeat donations, don’t. It doesn’t. Are you worried a more expensive well won’t be supported? Stop. Turns out donors want impact, not false impressions.
All of the data and evidence our donors allowed us to collect has led to better project implementation, improved supplies, preventative maintenance plans and less down time. Things can be done better. However, a race to find the cheapest per person cost won’t get us there. Ignoring the consequences of cheap hurts those we all intend to help. Help change the course here now.
Water is Still a Brilliant Investment
Finally, double-down on your own commitment. Getting involved in providing clean water is one of the smartest things you’ve ever done. We desperately need your determination and your voice. There is still a unique opportunity to invite people into the most impactful form of giving I know.
While we’ve certainly made mistakes along the way as an org, I was again encouraged to arrive in the office this morning and see displayed on our live dashboard that 93% of the water projects we’re actively engaged with at over 850 sites are functional — right now. Over 300,000 people are drinking water today. We know it because, through our local teams, we are in relationship with these folks. We’re asking and checking on our work, and more importantly we’re resolving issues. Those numbers will go up and down. But we’re not going to walk away from the relationships at the core of these projects. To serve more we’ll need to reach more with the truth of The Water Promise and unashamedly invest more per person to unlock potential. There will be an end to the water crisis, when we face the true challenges and make long term investments.
We stand ready to explore public/private partnerships, to engage with local government leaders, to cooperate with other like-minded water orgs, to share our knowledge, and to humbly listen for correction ourselves. We’ll do it all, as long as those we serve remain the sole focus of our efforts, ensuring that they can enjoy the same reliable access to clean, safe water that you and I take for granted every day.
