RWSN Information sur la région

The provision of safe water requires high initial investments for the construction of the water supply systems. lt is generally assumed that countries, like Ghana would for years to come depend on external donor support to cover the initial investment cost for the development of infrastructure for rural water supply. Experience in the past has shown that these substantial investments are often endangered as the water points fall out of service after a short period of time because of lack of adequate maintenance. | »

UNICEF Madagascar has been supporting rural water supply and sanitation activities in Madagascar for over ten years. The Water, Environment and Sanitation (WES) desk of UNICEF works with Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM), Government of Madagascar, on a number of water supply initiatives. One of these projects, in the southern part of Tulear Province (also known as the South - Sud), comprised of drilling wells and installation of 150 lndia Mark ll handpumps in the vicinity of Antanimora. This is referred to as the AAEPA Project later in this report. The installation handpumps in the AAEPA Project was completed during 1994-96 and has since then been supported by UNICEF for its operation and maintenance (O&M) with supply of spare parts. lt has gone through a number of reorganisations of its O&M system.

UNICEF Madagascar appointed Raj Kumar Daw, Project Officer - Handpump Technology Network, (PO-HTN) from UNICEF, lndia Country Office, New Delhi, for this study. The study was carried out during 5-29 July 2004. | »

Every year UNICEF WES projects are purchasing large numbers of handpumps. The promotion of low cost technologies by UNICEF has had a profound impact on the implementation of the projects. UNICEF has followed the policy to standardize the types of pumps used. ln some countries that achieved total self-sufficiency in production of handpumps the standardization policy has been acclaimed as the reason for the success. Recently standardization has been criticized for restricting free market forces and suppressing the development of local private industries in smaller countries.

The scope of this study was to collect data on handpump performance in several countries in West Africa. UNICEF WES projects vary in design and execution from country to country.
Projects in Mali or Burkina Faso operate in a completely different environment then in Nigeria.
Accordingly the findings and the recommendations contrast for each country. lt is however also possible to find common denominators about the factors that influence the performance of the pumps. These collective aspects should be considered for the formulation of future strategies. | »

UNICEF and later Save the Children USA initiated the introduction of the PlayPump in Mozambique. The pump is designed to be mainly used by school children. The turning wheel is connected to a pumping mechanism, which enables to pump water into an overhead tank.

Till date, about 100 PlayPumps have been installed in various schools and communities in the Maputo and Gaza Province in Mozambique. Skat was asked to undertake a technical and social evaluation of the PlayPumps together with CFPAS and to provide an independent study on the technology.

The concept of using children's excess energy while playing for pumping water sounds very attractive. The concept appears to be a very appealing technical option for water supplies used in school sanitation.

However, it is not clear whether the energy is actually enough to make sure that the water pump constantly. The children who play with the pump need to maintain a power input for water pumping from the given depth to the overhead tank and in addition initially need to exceed the power input to turn the pump and create the inertia as the pump acts as a flywheel.

Therefore an in-depth study of its technical performance and the social acceptability was carried out, as well as a comprehensive financial analysis (initial investment and O&M cost), which is needed to review the financial feasibility of the pump. | »

ln October 2006, RWSN conducted an Evaluation Mission of the Deep-well Handpumps installed in the PDARI Project in Maxixe.

ln a following meeting at the RWSN Forum in Ghana (December 2006) DPOPH-|, PDARI, Meera & Ceiko (handpump manufacturer) and SKAT discussed the problems faced during the evaluation mission and solutions were sought to solvqthese problems. At the end of the meeting it was decided to use a smaller riser pipe (@aB mm) and use instead of stainless steel pumprods the lightweight FRP rods. These changes would bring a considerable improvement in a reduction of the pumping effort and possibly ease the installation procedures.
To install this pump configuration correctly, an installation training by SKAT - RWSN should take place as soon as the specific material would have been delivered. | »