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United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development

Reaching SDG6.1 in rural Africa at a cost of $25/ person with the SMART approach; through training the local private sector and supporting self-supply.

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Description
Description

The SMART approach. The approach to reach the targets mentioned above is the SMART approach SMART stands for Simple, Market-based, Affordable, and Repairable Technologies and examples include household water filters, manually drilled tube wells, locally produced hand and solar pumps, rainwater harvesting and underground storage tanks. The combination of innovative technologies, the local production of drill sets and pumps and the focus on smaller wells for small communities can reduce the investment cost (CapEx) of an improved water source to as low as $25/person, provided the annual rainfall is >200mm. In this way it is possible to reach the many rural areas in SSA where population density is less than 50 people per square km. To provide “basic service” in these areas with conventional technologies like machine drilled boreholes and imported pumps, would cost $50-$150 per person. So reaching SDG6.1 in these rural areas with the SMART approach is possible at a much lower cost than with the conventional approach (Sutton. 2021). The SMART approach includes: 1. Innovation. New technologies for house hold water treatment, wells, pumps, rainwater harvesting and storage. All options that can be produced locally. 2. Training. Building capacity of the local private sector in technical & business skills 3. Self-supply. Stimulate households to invest in their own well. For instance subsidizing farm wells that are used for both domestic and productive uses like irrigation instead of subsidizing communal wells which are just for domestic use. SMARTechs Early examples of SMARTechs are the EMAS pump in Bolivia and the rope pump in Nicaragua. Both started around 1990 and over 70.000 of each pump type were installed in these countries. In Africa the introduction of SMARTechs started around 2000. Although simple, the hard lesson learned is ”Simple is not easy”. Good quality technologies require long term coaching in both technical and business skills.

Expected Impact

Reach SDG 6.1 in rural SSA by subsidizing farm wells and storage tanks. At several water fora professor John Cherry, recipient of the 2020 Stockholm Water Prize, highlighted the need for tens of millions of small wells in SSA. Small wells for farm families for domestic use that also serve to produce food in dry period (Cherry, 2022). Some 400 million people in SSA do not have “safely managed” or “basic water service”, the target group of SDG 6.1. Some 80% of these, so 320 million people, live in rural areas and are mostly small holder farmers with plots of 0.5 to 5 Ha. In many areas manual drilling of low cost tube wells is possible. Where wells are too expensive rain water can be collected in underground tanks. These combined with good quality water filters provide “basic service” or “safely managed water service” The average cost to provide water with improved of “new” locally produced technologies (SMARTechs) is 25$/ person so, the cost to reach SDG 6.1 in rural SSA would be 320 x $25 = $ 8 billion. This is 2 to 6 times less than what would be needed in the same situation with imported technologies (Sutton, 2021) or what would be needed according to the WHO (WHO, 2022). Besides reaching SDG 6.1 other advantages of this approach include contributions to; • SDG 1. Poverty. Water for livestock and irrigation can generate income • SDG 2. Food. Farm wells can be used to grow food in dry periods. • SDG 3. Gender. A household well reduces the time now used to collect water. • SDG 8. Employment. Wells and pumps create jobs for drillers and metal workers. • SDG 13. Climate. Rain water storage and low-cost wells build climate resilience. Through the partnership the three organisations will share their available resources, training manuals, experiences and lessons learned, network and M&E methodology. This provides a basis for other actors to also start using this approach and fund implementation

Partners

SMART Centre Group, The Groundwater Project, Tiyeni

Additional information

• Book: Self-Supply, Filling the gaps in public water supply provision by Sally Sutton and John Butterworth, https://practicalactionpublishing.com/book/2530/self-supply • Report: Assessment of the Simple, Market-based, Affordable and Repairable Technologies (SMART) approach for Water and Sanitation, https://www.rural-water-supply.net/en/resources/details/1081 and Presentation on findings, https://youtu.be/j8OR2VQqPCM • RWSN Field Note: History and status of the rope pump in Nicaragua - a success story about rural communal water supply and self-supply By G. Ferrero and J.D. Briemberg, https://www.rural-water-supply.net/en/resources/details/1071 • Manuals: Manuals of SMARTechs, https://smartcentregroup.com/index.php/resources/manuals/ • Reports: Reports and Presentations of SMART Centre Group, https://smartcentregroup.com/index.php/resources/presentations-and-papers/ • Book: Groundwater by John A. Cherry and R. Allan Freeze, https://gw-project.org/books/groundwater/ • Reports on Deep Bed Farming, https://www.tiyeni.org/research • Clip: What is a SMART Centre, https://youtu.be/gG5fCOUcey8 • Clip: SMART Training Centre, how does it work?, https://youtu.be/AzXKmye9b5Y

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Timeline
01 January 2023 (start date)
31 December 2029 (date of completion)
Entity
MetaMeta Research
SDGs
1 2 3 4 5 6 13 17
Region
  1. Africa
Other beneficiaries

Direct: private sector (SMEs) in these countries, who will be trained in the local production of innovative, low cost WASH technologies (SMARTechs). Indirect: households & communities where SMARTechs are installed, with a focus on farming families with water for domestic and productive uses. WASH networks where resources are shared (such as RWSN).

Countries
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ghana
Ghana
Kenya
Kenya
Malawi
Malawi
Mozambique
Mozambique
Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Nigeria
South Sudan
South Sudan
Global Action Plan
Ibero-American Network of Life Cycle Assesment
United States of America
United States of America
Zambia
Zambia
Contact Information

Reinier, Mr.