A recent study published in the International Journal of Water Resources Development quantifies the problem of broken-down drinking water infrastructure in rural Africa. Their findings “suggest that approximately one in four handpumps in sub-Saharan Africa are non-functional at any point in time, which in 2015 was roughly equivalent to 175,000 inoperative water points.” These statistics hide regional differences. Development experts in Madagascar, for instance, estimate much
higher failure rates, running to 60% in remote areas.

The human tragedy behind these numbers is shocking. Each well might be used by a hundred families on average. The total number of people that has lost access to safe drinking water because their pumps broke then amounts to some 90 million people. In turn, this translates into countless lives lost, especially young children.

There are many reasons why pumps don’t get repaired. As the Economist describes, sometimes village committees responsible for collecting repair fees are corrupt. More often, plain poverty is the cause; qualified repairmen are hard to find; or spare parts unavailable.

In this age and day, these reasons sound more and more like hollow excuses. A combination of smart technology and innovative financing mechanisms enables clever business models that can keep the water flowing, indefinitely. SaniTap is working to prove this at scale.