Oikos: 2020 Project First Annual Update

Date: 18/01/2023

In 2020, NextEnergy Foundation partnered with Istituto Oikos to replace diesel water pumps with solar-powered water pumps (“SPWPs”) in two rural villages, Ndedo and Irkiushioibor, in the Region of Manyara, Tanzania. In the Ndedo Village, almost 3,300 inhabitants are benefiting from the clean water. In the village of Irkiushioibor, there are over 5,900 beneficiaries. Please visit the project page for more details about the intervention.

The project was part of a wider three-year initiative called KISIMA, which sought to strengthen the WASH services in the Districts of Kiteto and Simanjiro, Manyara, Tanzania. It completed in January 2022 and Oikos recently submitted the first of three annual reports tracking the long-term impacts of the two SPWPs. Photographs of the systems in operation throughout the year are below.

Between January and December 2022, Oikos field staff visited the two villages on a regular basis to assist in the creation of the Community Based Water Supply Organisations (“CBWSOs”). This was conducted in close collaboration with the Tanzanian Government’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (“RUWASA”). The CBWSOs have been established to operate and manage the SPWPs over the long-term. Oikos also gathered data and compared it with data gathered pre-intervention to determine that the socio-economic impacts of the project are materialising across four dimensions:

  1. Reduced distance between the water distribution points and the major centres of aggregation of the population – this has been particularly positive for women who are now devoting the time they used to spend fetching water to other activities;
  2. Significant savings in water system operating costs – compared to the costs to run the previous diesel systems, each CBWSO saves USD 400-500 per month;
  3. Increased water quantity and improved quality – since April 2022 (when both systems were fully operational), over 13,000m3 potable water have been pumped and 100% of the water is potable;
  4. Heightened sense of responsibility for the two SPWPs on the part of the CBWSOs.

In addition, Oikos recently signed an agreement with RUWASA and Carbon Sink Group, an Italian carbon project developer, to accredit the two SPWPs with the Gold Standard and issue carbon credits which will be sold on the voluntary carbon market. The credits are generated by calculating the emissions avoided by each family accessing solar-pumped water instead of using diesel to generate potable water. Carbon Sink will sell the credits and the profits will be reinvested across the CBWSOs – under RUWASA’s supervision – to operate and monitor the SPWPs and to extend water access to neighbouring areas. The long-term aim is to extend this collaboration between RUWASA and Carbon Sink to all SPWPs developed by Oikos in Tanzania, including the three additional pumps financed by NextEnergy Foundation in 2022.