Malawi Initiatives

Water For People–Malawi takes an innovative and sustainable approach to the provision of safe water and improved sanitation facilities. By engaging the private sector and challenging traditional, subsidy-driven approaches, Water For People–Malawi believes it can have a longer-lasting impact. These innovative programs include Sanitation as a Business, the Circuit Rider Program, Children’s Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion, and Water User Associations.

SANITATION AS A BUSINESS

Water For People–Malawi’s Sanitation as a Business program shifts away from traditional, subsidy-driven sanitation approaches to a business-driven model. Conventional approaches suffer because they focus on the toilet; Sanitation as a Business focuses on the service, demonstrating that if an entrepreneur develops

an ongoing relationship with a customer, he or she can make a profit. Water For People–Malawi works with sanitation entrepreneurs to encourage their investment in sanitation, develop their skills, and see every household without a toilet as a potential client. Moreover, the program uses sanitation as a vehicle for business development by merging principles of market research and segmentation with comprehensive community involvement and thorough evaluation of results. In some scenarios, such as ecological sanitation, both the household and the entrepreneur make money from their toilets by using the compost as fertilizer on their farms or by selling it. In peri-urban Blantyre, households can take out a loan from a microfinance institution and use it to purchase a toilet; sanitation entrepreneurs not only provide the household with a toilet, but can also establish an ongoing contract for pit-emptying services. Through this program, sanitation entrepreneurs are motivated to increase sanitation coverage. Water For People–Malawi received the AfricaSan Award from the African Ministers Council on Water for this approach.

CIRCUIT RIDER PROGRAM

Water For People–Malawi is developing alternatives to water committees being solely responsible for water point maintenance. The problem of relying only on water committees to provide maintenance is that these volunteer groups are fragile, deteriorating over time due to families moving in and out, local politics, illness, and lack of skills transmission. The Circuit Rider Program trains local mechanics to provide regular maintenance and timely repair of water systems for a fee paid by the water committees. This private sector approach has the potential to provide better service, less downtime, and greater efficiency. The program is being piloted in Rumphi and Chikhwawa, where each circuit rider will be responsible for maintaining multiple water points, depending on his or her initiative and capacity.

Children’s Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion

In 2007, Water For People–Malawi began this program to encourage children to use latrines and practice good hygiene. Children in targeted schools receive child-size “arbor-loos” that allow them to defecate safely and hygienically into a shallow pit latrine with a sturdy slab. Ash and dirt are added to feces after each use, which helps eliminate odors, promotes composting, and increases hand washing (the presence of dirt on the children’s hands prompts them to wash). Once the arbor- loo is full, the slab is moved to cover a newly dug pit and a tree is planted in its former place, displaying the richness of the compost and beautifying the school.

This program reaches out to the surrounding communities with a coupon system by which teachers provide students with a “buy one, get one free” coupon entitling the family to one free arbor loo slab when they purchase a household composting latrine from the local sanitation entrepreneur.

WATER USER ASSOCIATIONS

Water For People–Malawi is working in the low-income areas of Blantyre to establish Water User Associations to manage communal water points (water kiosks). A WUA is generally composed of an elected board, an executive committee, and paid staff, including a bookkeeper, water sellers, water inspectors, and plumbers. It sells water to people through communal water kiosks, where people purchase by-the-bucket water from sellers. Water For People–Malawi helps establish the WUA and provides it with the technical (water point maintenance and repair), financial (tariff development and financial accountability), and human resource skills necessary to manage the water system. Water For People-Malawi also helps the WUA to set up a contract with the Blantyre Water Board (BWB), so that the WUA is responsible for paying the BWB for all the water piped to the water kiosks under its management (usually 25 to 50 water kiosks). As the WUA is paying for the water, it is in its best interests to ensure that the water points are well maintained (no leakages or outages) and serving the community, so that it can continue to make a profit. In 2011, three new water user associations will be established to rehabilitate as well as build new water kiosks to better serve the populations in these low-income areas.