Handpump Operation & Maintenance (O&M)
A new handpump will not work for ever, with time some part may come loose or wear out and need to be replaced. Therefore, technical know-how need to be availble for regular maintenance and repairs when the pump breaks down.

To this aim, some 20 years ago, development organizations developed the VLOM approach. VLOM stands for: Village Level Operated & Maintained. The basic starting point of the VLOM approach is that the users should be responsible for the maintenance of the pump. This sounds logic, but in practise it became clear that this was easier said than done. Repairs usually become more complicated and expensive after some years and spare parts are often hard to find.

In the VLOM approach, it was also assumed that the key issue was to make the community feel that it was "their' own handpump. It was argued  that as long as the community has a "sense of ownership", they will feel more responsible and therefore will automatically be more motivated to maintain "their" handpump. However, in practise also this assumption did not lead to sustainable handpump O&M practice.

Indeed, some "example" show-case communities could do this, especially in shallow boreholes, but the reality all over Africa is different. The result is that, today, on average 1 out of 3 handpumps, or about 40% to 50% of these VLOM handpumps are now abandoned. Especially handpumps in deep boreholes break down very often and are abandoned (70 to 90%). Statistics are hard to beat. It is expected that within 10 years most VLOM handpumps in Africa will be broken down.

The idea of FairWater Foundation started already in 1997 in Mozambique when Paul van Beers was the Country representative of SaWa, a Dutch NGO that implemented rehabilitation of small pipes water systems in countries that were in a post-war situation. In such countries, due to the war, most water systems were broken down, so a logic first step to get back into development was to rehabilitate them.

But more and more, it became clear that not only in a post-war situation like in Mozambique water systems needed rehabilitation. For instance, also most of the handpumps in the rural communities were broken down, in fact, all over Africa. When he realized the magnitude and importance of that issue, he was interested in the issue of Operation & Maintenance (O&M) of water systems; what makes water systems work or why do they fail, what are the key success factors to look for and what to avoid. In other words, what happens in the post-donor phase, when the communities have to maintain the donor pump, all by themselves.

(1) So already in 1998 he was involved in solving the problem of broken handpumps.

Until that time, he has been mainly working in the implementing phase of water projects. That is indeed the nice part of the work to visit communities and donors during the implementation phase of a water project; you only deal with happy people with good expectations. But at that time, he was not really aware of what will happen with the handpump after a few years time. In these days, NGOs were not concerned about sustainability. Now we know, that one after the other, handpumps fail and are rusting away, leaving the people frustrated and not happy.

Although thousands of handpumps are now rusting away, to his opinion, that is not the key problem. Controversely, the key problem today is that the issue of sustainability is still out of the focus of many NGOs. In other, more simple words, they don't really care about it. Many NGOs justify their existence by doing good but don't like to look back, too busy with their next "do-good" project. Understandable, everybody wants a job and do good, but it's does not deliver what was promised, so it's not right in the end.

When you start to be involved in providing safe water to a community, you also have the moral obligation to make sure that you did everything to enable the people to maintain what you gave them so generously. Otherwise it doesn't make sense and is in fact counter productive and becomes a sick joke.

It's also a fascinating and complex subject, due to all these stakeholders own interest and hidden agenda's.  Paul continued to study these handpump O&M issues, visited many handpump factories around the world and did studies amoungst others for the World Bank. He reported about his findings in many conferences and reports, but there was still very little interest from the donors and NGOs for this issue; amazingly enough, they didn't really want to hear about this.

He concluded that the standard handpumps commonly used were far too fragile and needed too many spare parts. Clearly, the communities needed a more solid and simple handpump. However, there was no incentive at all within the sector to develop such a better handpump for several "business reasons". Quality and durability was therefore not an option, also due to the higher price. Besides, many countries had already decided that a better handpump was not necessary and imposed to standardise on one or or more types of pumps, although they already knew that these types were too fragile and not sustainable. Hidden agenda's, commercial interest and disrespect for the need of communities were clearly behind these decisions.

However, in the communities these fragile traditional pumps continue to break down one after the other and families were desperate in need for a better and more durable handpump. But the time was not yet right; NGOs were still very happy with feeling good with their profitable business as usual. Understandable, because in fact, nobody controlled what they did anyway and the "charity" market to do good with new and fragile cheap pumps was booming and flourishing. Billions of US$ were raised for water projects each year, so there was not really a problem for them.

In the meantime, men were walking on the moon, planes became extreamly reliable with jet engines, the fax was invented, computers did miracles, colour TV was in most households, mobile phones conquered the world, .... But in the poor communities, schools and health centers in Africa, people suffered more and more and many thousands of kids died in silence because of broken handpumps.... These disasters were never on the news; it could spoil the reputation of some of the large NGOs that were so proudly promoting their water projects to "help" the people with water aid that has no results. How come the world didn't know or did't care about this dark problem in the far away bush of Africa?

When he became managing director of the Rural Water Development Project (RWD) in Kisii, he had finally the possibility to put his ideas to develop a better handpump into action. The RWD project had a competent staff and together with them and the local private sector, the first model of the BluePump was developed. More field test with NGOs in the field (Oxfam, Samatarian Purse, ASAP, ADRA in several African countries followed and the rest is history. The BluePump is there to stay and cannot be denied it anymore, to many communities know now about it and start to put pressure on governments and donors to use this better technology.

Although, initially, when the BluePump came on the market, he thought (or hoped) that NGOs would welcome such a simple and reliable handpump, but unfortunately, this did not happen. Again, most water aid NGOs still prefer to focus on business as usual with fundraising as major profitable activity and still no sign of interest in sustainable technology. This was a disapointment, but also a good lesson how things really work in the world: People prefer "Business as Usual" and resist to change.

However, there were a few exceptions that need to be mentioned with respect. Oxfam Kenya showed interest, NGOs as Global Resources Alliances (GRA Tanzania), IRD in Swaziland, ADRA Niger, Samatarian Purse Mozambique, Christian Service Commitee (CSC) Malawi, ASAP Burkina, etc. were positive and courageous enough to try the BluePumps already in the early stages and are now all happy users. Over 500 BluePumps are now in operation amoungst these NGOs!

(2) He understood that governments and NGOs would never initiate improvement themselves.

(3) Therefore the most realistic option was to start himself a new type of organization.

(4) So he started with his wife Sureyya, the "FairWater Foundation" with the "BlueZone approach".

FairWater has a new and fresh approach and is not always following the "usual" steps to create the necessary impact for the people in Africa. We are independent from Government subsidies and other policy makers. Instead, we prefer to work together with the green private sector and a small group of dedicated people all over the world, that are willing to go the extra mile, and have a pure & genuine interest in making things better in a long lasting, sustainable way.
No short term gains, no penny wise, pound foolish actions. Just plain logic, simply doing the right stuff that matters for the people in Africa that need water every day.

We absolutely do not agree with Governments or some NGOs, to wast time with more and more studies without practical actions. This only shows that they do not understand what goes on in the communities in Africa. But we are also confident that they will finally change and join our sustainable approach. There is simply no other way to a better future. The technology is now available, together with the right management concept for scaling up, so no time to waste!

Our approach is simple and effective: we solve problems by creating local jobs, NOT with charity donations. Therefore we focus on involvement of the local private sector, cost recovery options through up scaling, and improvement of logistics, supply chains and integrated business. We do this in an evidence based manner, everybody can see and follow what we do within our water projects. We have 2 major lines of intervention:

(1) The BlueZone Concept: This is a management model to create safe & sustainable rural water supply in a service region for a fair price. The success of the model is based on the combination of using a very reliable (but simple) handpump (the BluePump) in an area with regional support from the private sector for maintenance. At the same time, the service provider is also involved in other water related services in "his" BlueZone, like for instance installation of new BluePumps, solar systems, irrigation systems, water filters systems, etc. As long as he keeps his customers satisfied, also with maintenance support, all these activities will add up to a profitable sustainable business in water services that makes everybody happy.

(2) Low-cost water filters for households, schools and rural hospitals are part of the model, to secure safe water for the users. FairWater promotes therefore simple & practical solutions such as the Kisii bucket filter for households and the improved BioSand filter, such as the Tiva filter. The introduction and after sale service of these filters is also part of the BlueZone Concept.

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