The idea of FairWater Foundation started already in 2003 in Kenya when Paul van Beers was the managing director of the Rural Water Development Project (RWD) in Kisii. The RWD project was a joint project of 3 Diocese in western Kenya and one of the largest and most successful water projects at that time. It provided over 1.500 water points (dug wells, boreholes, rainwater harvesting systems and spring protections) and about 16.000 sanitation slabs in a period of about 15 years.

Although RWD was considered as a "succesful" project at the time, sustainability was already identified as an upcoming problem. This became painfully clear when a similar large rural water project that installed some 10 years ago about 1.000 handpumps in Western Kenya was evaluated and it was found that most of these handpumps were not functioning anymore.

There was already growing international concern about the accountability and effectiveness of Development Aid and the issue of more cost-effective and sustainable development aid was put on the international agenda.

Especially water projects could not deliver and were urged to perform better to avoid that more funding is wasted. However, it became clear that this was easier said than done. Despite many efforts to change the approach, up to today, most water projects are still not sustainable and need regular donor or NGO input to continue.

The public started to be aware that "Development Aid" was becoming a flourishing and profitable activity for a select group of people and that the original idea of "sustainable development" to create better conditions for the poor was getting lost.

The result is that today, most water projects are more "charity" oriented with a short term focus on number of donated handpumps, while the sustainability of these handpumps is not on the agenda. Even worse, more and more the NGOs that work in the sector pretend to be concerned, but in fact are more oriented on fund raising to "stay in the business" than focused on creating sustainable water points.

It is obvious that the present situation is the result of the interest of many stakeholders in the sector. Therefore change is very difficult. Many people and organizations are in fact not un-happy with the actual situation and are against any progress, innovation or improvement. "Business as Usual" is therefore the general mantra of most governments, donors and NGOs. However, it is foreseen that the massive funding for water projects will substancialy decrease after 2015, when the millennium projects are supposed to be finished.

The key question is therefore, "how long can this go on and what to do about this?

FairWater promotes transparency & effective solutions

The BlueZone Concept: This is a management model to create safe & sustainable rural water supply 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. The BluePump has a large water output, pumps lighter, which is important for children, has no need for spare parts to function and can pump water from depths up to 100m.

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.

Who is: