By Euphresia Luseka In Celebration of Africa Women’s Day 2026 KENYA, JULY 31, 2026
Featured photo: Gilda Giza Rede an Angolan Electromechanical maintenance technician. Rede also represents a new generation of women entering highly technical engineering roles in large-scale water infrastructure. Source, African Development Bank (AfDB).
As the African Union declares 2026 the Year of Water and Sanitation, the continent’s most persistent social burden is being reframed as a productive economic asset; driven by policy innovation, institutional partnerships, and female-led advances in infrastructure, science, and enterprise.
For decades, global development policy viewed African water through the lens of charity and endurance; measuring the billions of unpaid hours women spent carrying water rather than the economic value lost through reduced productivity, constrained livelihoods, and foregone opportunity[i].
As the African Union declares 2026 the Year of Water and Sanitation, that narrative is beginning to shift[ii]. Governments, investors, and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) are increasingly recognising what many African women leaders have long understood: water is not simply a welfare issue. It is productive infrastructure that underpins agriculture, manufacturing, energy security, public health, and, ultimately, economic growth.
This structural transition is reshaping the sector. The traditional model, centred on public expenditure and development assistance, is giving way to a diversified water economy in which governments, DFIs, commercial investors, technology firms, utilities, and local enterprises collectively finance, deliver, and scale water solutions as illustrated on the figure below.[iii] Within this emerging ecosystem, women are no longer positioned primarily as beneficiaries of water services but as scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, utility leaders, policymakers, and investors shaping how water is governed, financed, and deployed.
Figure Showing The AU 2026 Shift: How Female Leadership and Blended Finance are Transforming Africa’s Water Economy.
The implications extend well beyond the water sector. Reliable water systems determine agricultural productivity, industrial competitiveness, urban resilience, and countries’ capacity to adapt to climate change.[iv] Investment in water is therefore increasingly recognised not only as a social imperative but as a strategic economic investment.
The women shaping this transition are helping to build a new African water economy where science, policy, entrepreneurship, and finance converge to transform water from a development necessity into a catalyst for inclusive growth.
Some of the Women Building Africa’s Water Economy
This transformation is already visible across the continent through a new generation of scientists, entrepreneurs, and institutional leaders who are changing how water resources are measured, governed, financed, and delivered. As profiled in the 1st African Women in Water and Sanitation Compendium,[v] their work demonstrates that the future of Africa’s water economy will depend not only on physical infrastructure, but on the systems of knowledge, innovation, and governance that make investment possible.[vi]
From satellite-based groundwater mapping in the Sahel to community-led watershed management in The Gambia, circular sanitation enterprises in Senegal, and digital water distribution models in Rwanda, women are building the capabilities required to convert water and sanitation challenges into economic opportunities as elaborated below:
1. Science: Turning Uncertainty into Investable Assets:
Investment follows information. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Sahel, where advances in satellite hydrology are transforming how groundwater resources are identified, valued, and managed. Among the pioneers is Dr. Fadji Zaouna Maina, a Nigerien Earth scientist and hydrologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Using satellite remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing, she maps deep aquifers across one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions. Her work enables governments, utilities, and investors to make more informed decisions on irrigation, water infrastructure, and long-term resource management.
Blog by Euphresia Luseka, RWSN Leave No One Behind theme co-Lead
Featured photo: Catarina de Albuquerque, then United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on 27 July 2011. Source: United Nations.
On July 28, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 64/292[i], recognising access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a fundamental human right. More than a symbolic declaration, the resolution marked a significant shift in global development policy, affirming that water and sanitation are not simply public services or economic commodities, but essential prerequisites for human dignity, public health, gender equality, and sustainable development.[ii]
16 years later, the Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS) stands at a pivotal moment. Progress toward SDG6 has slowed, Official Development Assistance (ODA) is under pressure, and climate change is intensifying water insecurity across regions already struggling with fragile infrastructure[iii]. Against this backdrop, a growing narrative suggests that the promise of the right has failed to translate into meaningful change.[iv]
That conclusion overlooks an important reality.
The strongest argument for the Human Right to Water and Sanitation is not found in international declarations, but in the measurable progress achieved since its recognition in 2010.
The past 16 years have produced measurable progress in expanding access to safe water and sanitation, strengthening legal protections, and improving public service delivery.[v] While universal access remains out of reach, the evidence demonstrates that where governments have embedded the right in domestic law, invested in resilient infrastructure, and strengthened public institutions, the results have been transformative.[vi]
Building on 16 years of Progress
As illustrated in the figure below, the record since 2010 offers compelling evidence that rights-based governance can deliver tangible development outcomes when supported by political commitment, sound institutions, and sustained investment. Across countries and regions, the recognition of water and sanitation as a human right has influenced constitutional reforms, shaped public policy, strengthened accountability, and accelerated investments in essential services.
The expansion of water and sanitation services over the past two decades is unprecedented in scale. According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), more than 2.2 billion people have gained access to safely managed drinking water services, while 2.8 billion people have gained access to safely managed sanitation. 5 During the same period, the number of people practicing open defecation declined dramatically; from more than 1.3 billion at the turn of the century to an estimated 350 million today.5 These gains have contributed to lower rates of waterborne disease, improved child survival, and better health and education outcomes, particularly for women and girls.
While these advances cannot be attributed to Resolution 64/292 alone, the recognition of water and sanitation as a human right helped reshape the global policy landscape.1 It reinforced political commitments, informed national legislation, and strengthened accountability by establishing access to water and sanitation as a public obligation rather than a discretionary service.
The influence of the resolution is perhaps most evident in domestic legal reform. Although the resolution itself is not legally binding, it has served as an important normative foundation for constitutional and legislative change in many countries. Kenya’s, Uruguay’s, Ecuador’s, Bolivia’s and South Africa’s Constitution explicitly guarantees the right to sufficient water, providing citizens with a legal basis to challenge unjustified service disconnections and demand government accountability.7 In India, the Supreme Court has interpreted the constitutional right to life to encompass access to safe drinking water, expanding legal protections for vulnerable communities.8 Across Latin America, countries including Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Brazil have strengthened constitutional and statutory provisions that prioritise water for domestic use over competing commercial interests.6 Similar developments have occurred in Europe. Slovenia amended its Constitution in 2016 to recognise access to drinking water as a fundamental right, while the European Union’s revised Drinking Water Directive requires Member States to improve access to water, particularly for vulnerable and marginalised groups.
Legal recognition, however, has proven most effective when accompanied by capable public institutions.
The experience of the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority in Cambodia illustrates what is possible when governance reforms accompany infrastructure investment. Once characterised by high water losses, weak financial management, and widespread corruption, the utility transformed itself into one of the world’s leading public water providers through universal metering, improved operational efficiency, transparent management, and progressive tariff structures.6 Today, Phnom Penh enjoys near-universal urban water coverage while protecting affordability for low-income households.
A similarly instructive example comes from eThekwini Municipality in Durban, South Africa.[vii] Through its Free Basic Water policy, the municipality guarantees vulnerable households a minimum allocation of water free of charge, financed through increasing block tariffs that require higher-volume consumers to pay proportionately more.8 The model demonstrates that equity and financial sustainability need not be competing objectives. Well-designed pricing systems can simultaneously protect vulnerable households, recover operating costs, and expand access.
Taken together, these experiences underscore an important lesson. The Human Right to Water and Sanitation does not deliver results simply because it exists as an international norm; its true value lies in its ability to shape domestic institutions, guide public investment, and strengthen accountability. The unfinished nature of the global agenda should therefore not obscure the considerable progress already achieved or the practical lessons it offers for accelerating universal access.
The Unfinished Agenda
Recognising progress is not the same as declaring victory. Despite significant advances over the past 16 years, universal access to safe water and sanitation remains one of the world’s most pressing development challenges. More than 2.1 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water at home, while 3.4 billion do not have access to safely managed sanitation.5 These gaps are not simply the result of technical constraints; they reflect persistent weaknesses in law, finance, infrastructure, and governance.
Mutala Abdul-Mumin and I recently co-hosted a RWSN – Rural Water Supply Network webinar examining how countries are using water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) data to support progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6 targets for #water. More than 240 people joined, and the discussion ran long so we couldn’t cover everything in the time available. A few observations on government adoption of digital technologies stood out, and I wanted to share them.
Firstly, governments recognize the value of data. It is sometimes assumed that governments remain indifferent to evidence, but the presentations from Ghana and Sierra Leone suggested a different picture. There is a clear interest in having a firmer grip on data, provided it is relevant to the decisions governments actually face (that is, addressing actual pain points) rather than information collected for its own sake. Sierra Leone’s use of WASH Accounts to track how financial resources are allocated, and whether they reach sustainable water and sanitation services, illustrated how data was responding to a question the government genuinely had. Because it answered a real question, the incentive to adopt and implement was already there.
Secondly, governments are increasingly embracing digitization. The move from paper-based methods toward digital systems was all the talk across the continent more than a decade ago. The session indicated that this transition is now underway in practice, with both Ghana and Sierra Leone taking different paths to migrating from paper to digital systems and even further to more centralized systems. This is no easy feat though; Sierra Leone has been on this data journey for more than four years and is not done yet, but they are still driving and leading the process.
Thirdly, digitization appears to be broadening ambition. The World Health Organisation presentation highlighted institutional fragmentation (WASH responsibilities being split across different ministries) as one of the most consistent systemic barriers to data-driven decision-making. Governments, using digital tools, are stepping up to address this barrier. In Ghana, in particular, they are leading to make sure WASH data serves more than just the ministry responsible for water, but also other strategic sectors such as health and education. This is a considerable undertaking that will require sustained resources and coordination across government departments, but the willingness to pursue this was evident and shows how digital tools have opened up options that weren’t on the table before.
Lastly, and interestingly given our times, a comment from a participant concerning artificial intelligence made me reflect on one key lesson I believe we can take forward from the digitization experience. When I asked the speakers what role they saw for AI in their work, both countries described a deliberate, sequential approach, meaning they preferred to address governance, financing and underlying systems gaps first BEFORE introducing AI as an additional layer. It was a measured response, and a clear signal that both countries want to move at their own pace. Given the impact AI has had across the world, do you blame them? Learning from the digitization experience, this measured response was not necessarily surprising. The ‘fail fast’ culture may suit NGOs and the private sector, but governments need more time to weigh effectiveness against trade-offs, especially on tax-payer funded services such as water supply.
So, if I had to wrap this up under one simple lesson from this webinar, it would be this: governments are not necessarily technophobic, they are technocautious. And with the current push, mostly via philanthropy, to scale new technologies through government systems, this is a valuable lesson to keep in mind. If nothing else, it could help manage expectations around the pace of government adoption. Fascinating stuff!
My thanks to Fiona Gore (WHO), Suzzy Abaidoo (Ghana) and DAUDA KAMARA (Sierra Leone) for their contributions, and to all who attended. The recording are currently available on the RWSN website for those who missed the webinar or would wish to revisit the discussion. Links can be found below:
Then, a while back, Tom Chaplin and The Stone Family Foundation asked me whether the private-sector run water mini-grids that they had been supporting in Cambodia were to be found anywhere else in the world. Using the power of the RWSN – Rural Water Supply Network and our network of networks I tried to find any examples around the world that had similarities. I wasn’t very successful. However, as a by-product, I learned a lot about electricity mini-grids and this, along with an experience of meeting village micro-hydropower entrepreneurs in Myanmar with Dipti Vaghela and Hedi Feibel slowly baked into an obsession: could the parallel systems of rural #water supply and rural #energy supply be brought together?
Some of my current thoughts on the water + energy link
The graphic is my attempt to distill what I’ve learned through all of this (trying to avoid a systems diagram with lots of squiggly arrows) to identify some leverage points where the two sectors could reinforce each other. Right now, the urban way of thinking and working dominates: water and energy are separate and there are very good reasons for doing that; but applying urban logic to rural areas, with lower populations densities, different economies and different social and cultural norms, does not have great track record.
Instead, how about focusing attention on these three leverage points where the two systems intersect:
Within weeks of the AU declaration, the World Bank Group launched the Water Forward Initiative at its Spring Meetings in April 2026. The initiative aims to ‘make water systems investable, scalable, and capable of supporting prosperity at scale’. As World Bank Group President Ajay Banga put it, “Water is foundational to how economies function. When water systems work, farmers produce, businesses operate, and cities attract investment.”
The question then becomes: how do we ensure that these high-level declarations are delivered to local communities, and particularly rural African communities that remain largely underserved?
This question is especially pertinent given other major development programmes advancing in parallel with the water initiatives across the continent, which are relevant to delivering the economic potential of water but are not necessarily presented as such. For instance, there is the Mission 300 initiative, developed by the World Bank and the African Development Bank, which targets electricity access for 300 million Africans by 2030. There is also the agriculture-focused programme, AgriConnect, also developed by the World Bank and aimed at improving smallholder productivity, food systems, and rural incomes targeting 300 million smallholder farmers globally by 2030, with country compacts already launched in Senegal, Guinea, Ghana and Angola. The physical infrastructure component of AgriConnect recognizes that ‘irrigation, transportation corridors such as roads and railways, and electricity form the backbone of a strong agriculture value chain’.
While the World Bank/AfDB programmes, along with the African Union’s policy framework, were not designed as a single integrated framework, their implementation realities converge at the community level. Reliable water access underpins irrigation and agricultural productivity; energy is needed to pump, treat, and distribute that water; and water and energy systems both become more viable when anchored in productive agricultural demand. As a result, rural development, and specifically economic outcomes in water, energy, and agriculture, are increasingly interdependent, a practical convergence reflecting the logic of the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems nexus.
A useful nexus level implementation lever: PUE & MUS
A conversation at this year’s Energy Access Investment Forum pointed to the convergence of two common yet often unlinked approaches as a low-hanging starting point in delivering these high-level declarations to local communities: Productive Use of Energy (PUE) and Multiple-Use Water Services (MUS). PUE is an increasingly popular approach within the energy sector that refers to the use of energy to create value, be it in the form of productivity or income, employment, or reduced hardship. PUE largely entails using decentralized energy systems (for example, mini-grids and solar home systems) to support income-generating activities. This includes irrigation, agro-processing, cold storage, and small enterprise development. PUE approaches have demonstrated consistent livelihood gains across the region: solar irrigation in Ethiopia has helped over 3,199 households diversify crops and extend cultivation through dry seasons, while solar agro-processing in Uganda has enabled women-led enterprises to reduce post-harvest losses and generate new income streams, with one solar dryer installation alone yielding over US$2,382 in additional income for 90 smallholder women farmers.
Across many African rural contexts, however, mini-grids, a more economical electrification option compared to extension of the main grid, face viability challenges due to limited demand concentrated only in household consumption. Without productive demand, revenue streams remain insufficient for sustainability.
At a rural district hospital in West Africa, a medical oxygen production plant went down for scheduled maintenance and a two-day job took almost a week – because the hospital didn’t have a consistent water supply. Replacing a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plant’s zeolite molecular sieve requires clean water to flush the pressure vessels, and submersible pumps require electricity, and the grid is intermittent, and fuel is expensive, and so the maintenance team waited for power, to get water, to clean the pressure vessels, to put the PSA oxygen plant back into service. Meanwhile, the clinical team burned through days of backup cylinder inventory until the oxygen plant finally came back online. This kind of downtime chain reaction happens all the time in limited-resource healthcare facilities [1], and it almost never gets spotted in advance.
All WASH practitioners working in healthcare delivery understand that reliable potable water supply is non-negotiable for safe clinical procedures, patient hydration and nutrition, and effective infection prevention and control, but according to WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program data from 2023, only 60% of healthcare facilities in sub-Saharan Africa had access to basic water services (defined as an improved water source on the healthcare facility premises)[2]. What’s not often considered is that a reliable water supply is also critical to facilities’ operations and maintenance, and when it’s interrupted, the ripple effects show up in places a WASH assessment would never look – like PSA oxygen plant downtime.
Ainslie Street Advisory developed the Facilities Readiness Assessment (FRA) to catch healthcare infrastructure failures before they happen. The FRA covers water and sanitation alongside electrical infrastructure, medical oxygen supply, waste management, and operations and maintenance, and includes references such as Médecins Sans Frontières’ Public Health Engineering in Precarious Situations and the WHO/UNICEF WASH in Health Care Facilities Global Baseline Report. In the example above, the FRA would have flagged the gaps in power, water, and medical O2 supply before the maintenance team took the plant out of service, enabling the facilities team to prepare by stockpiling a bit of fuel, filling the water tanks, and compressing a few extra oxygen cylinders before getting started. The FRA also distinguishes what matters most across a facility by specifying Critical Life Safety factors, e.g. consistent free residual chlorine monitoring is not weighted equally with sufficient handwashing points.
Fig. 1 – Facilities Readiness assessment summary page with scoring by component and separate Critical Life Safety issues
Ainslie Street Advisory is a fee-for-service infrastructure advisory firm grounded in over a decade of humanitarian and global health implementation experience. ASA deploys the Facilities Readiness Assessment at limited-resource healthcare facilities and provides additional infrastructure advisory services like pre-procurement technical assessment, capital project development support, and O+M program design. We operate globally with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa and are available for new client engagements now. Contact us at hello@ainsliestreet.com.
[1] Water, sanitation, hygiene, waste and electricity services in health care facilities: progress on the fundamentals. 2023 global report, pp. 9-11. Geneva: World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2023, link. Accessed 13 April 2026.
[2] WASH in health care facilities 2023 data update: special focus on primary health care, Geneva: World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2024, link. Accessed 13 April 2026.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) or its Executive Committee.
A Walk Before Dawn
At five in the morning, Busia County, Kenya is still wrapped in silence. But Jeruto is already walking. Fourteen years old, barefoot, a yellow jerrycan pressed into her hip. Three kilometres to water, three kilometres back.
She knows this path by heart. She also knows it is never safe. Men wait in the shadows. The price of water is sometimes not money but dignity. By the time she returns, the day has already slipped away; half her classes gone, her body exhausted, her hope dimmed.
“I was afraid,” she says. “But what choice did we have?”
This is the reality of women and girls without drinking water supplies on the premises every day stolen by the simple act of survival. And yet, here is the cruel paradox; when decisions are made about water, women are nowhere in the room. They carry the heaviest burden but hold the least power. The sector is still led by men.
That irrationality is finally being challenged. In western Kenya, three men, yes, men are ripping up the old rules of water and power. They are saying: enough. Not with platitudes, not with empty gender policies that gather dust, but with radical reforms that change who gets to sit at the table, who gets paid, who gets promoted, who gets heard.
And the truth they have stumbled into is this; Gender equity is not tokenism. It is infrastructure. It is resilience. It is the difference between a girl chained to a jerrycan and a girl being educated.
When Water Becomes Opportunity
The revolution begins small. For Jeruto, it started with the hum of a drilling rig. Just metres from her school gate, the Lake Victoria North Water Works Development Agency (LVNWWDA) sunk a borehole. Water surged from the ground, and with it, time, safety, and dignity returned to her life.
The 3 hours she once lost on the road became minutes. Within a year, girls’ local schools’ attendance had risen by nearly 30 percent.
For Joel Wamalwa, the agency’s CEO, this borehole was not just a piece of engineering. It was a revelation.
“Water unlocks education, strengthens health, reduces risks of violence, and frees women’s time for work and enterprise,” he says. “When women are included in planning and leadership, water systems become not only more equitable but more sustainable.”
Water, he insists, is not only a service. It is a multiplier.
Joel Wamalwa, CEO LVNWWDA says water is a Multiplier, Photographer: Euphresia Luseka
The Paradox of Exclusion
And yet, Joel has spent much of his career staring at a contradiction that borders on absurd. Women carry the heaviest weight of water scarcity rationing supplies, absorbing the stress of breakdowns, managing survival when systems fail. They are the first to wake, the last to sleep, the ones who walk the farthest.
But when utilities gather to make decisions on staffing, on budgets, on infrastructure women are almost invisible.
“We made choices about them without them,” he says quietly. “That was not only unjust. It was inefficient.”
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) or its Executive Committee.
Fake Qualifications, Real Consequences: The Brenda Sulungai Case
Despite major gains in infrastructure and technology investments, Kenya’s water utilities continue to underperform often not due to a lack of funding or innovation, but because of the human capital crisis festering within. I have witnessed strategic plans, technological upgrades, and donor-funded initiatives collapse under the weight of a talent base that was never prepared or licensed.
This blog analyses the technical, legal and operational risks posed by weak certification systems, forgery, and unqualified staffing across Kenya’s water sector. It also proposes a plan for professionalising the sector, building institutional resilience, and restoring public’s vital trust.
The Pervasive Scale of Credential Fraud
“Every academic certificate in Kenya is now questionable. Forgery is happening across all sectors including those critical to life like water and health. We cannot ignore this anymore.” –Twalib Mbarak, CEO, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC)
This stark statement captures the magnitude of Kenya’s credential fraud crisis as a structural failure that compromises public service integrity at scale as demonstrated in Box 1.
Box 1: Sector-Wide Credential Fraud Uncovered in National Audit
“This is systemic. There are falsified documents even at PhD level, dissertations are downloaded from the internet.” – Dr. David Oginde, Chairperson, EACC
Consequently, this is not simply a matter of individual misconduct it points to a systemic failure in verification systems, risk management, and institutional accountability.
The Grave Consequences: Incompetence Endangering Lives and Undermining Progress
The human capital crisis in Kenya’s water sector driven by systemic weaknesses in credential verification, licensing, and staff training is not only an administrative oversight but threatens public health and utility performance.
Sustainable transformation requires human capital to be treated as a core infrastructure asset.
Systemic Vulnerabilities and Their Underlying Causes
I. Governance Deficit: Institutional Decay Through Political Capture
Kenya’s water sector suffers from a foundational governance breakdown; WASREB, the national water regulator notes a few WSPs have structured HR policies, indicating systemic weakness. Other gaps include: Outdated job descriptions, Irregular or absent performance reviews and Non-existent competency frameworks.
“Staff appointments in WSPs are frequently driven by tenure, local allegiances, or political alignment rather than technical merit. This erosion of meritocracy is neither incidental nor benign; it is indicative of deliberate political capture.”— Charles Chitechi, President, Water Sector Workers Association of Kenya (WASWAK)
Even WSP BODs that are governance bulwarks, are compromised. Opaque recruitment, undertrained members, and entrenched conflicts of interest have rendered them susceptible to patronage.
This politicisation has real operational costs, including poor service delivery, stagnant capacity, and a rise in credential forgery.
II. Regulatory Void: Absence of Mandatory Professional Licensing
Despite being designated as Kenya’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors, the water sector lacks a national mandatory licensing framework. Unlike medicine or engineering, no statutory barrier prevents an unqualified person from operating a treatment plant. Training institutions exist, including KEWI, NITA, and TVETs, but certification is inconsistent, and unenforced. Most alarming is the absence of a centralised professional registry, allowing forgeries to pass undetected unless exposed by whistleblowers.
Kenya’s current policy approach enables fraud by omission. The lack of a licensing regime is not a gap; it is a deliberate vulnerability.
III. Investment Blind Spot: Human Capital as the Missing Infrastructure
According to WASREB, Kenya’s WSPs spend less than 1% of OPEX on staff training, compared to the 5%-7% benchmark in high-performing WSPs globally. This chronic underinvestment in people creates a compounding deficit: Stagnant skills lead to operational bottlenecks, Low morale drives attrition and disengagement and Poor efficiency increases non-revenue water (NRW).
“You cannot digitize your way out of poor staffing. At some point, someone has to operate the system.”
These figures make the business case clear. Training is not a cost; it is a strategic investment with measurable returns.
IV. Project Design Fallacy: Infrastructure Without Operators
Despite significant investments in tools such as GIS mapping, NRW audit software, and digital billing systems, Kenya’s utilities remain trapped in underperformance.
From experience, the primary reason infrastructure projects fail is they’re often designed for a workforce that does not yet exist. Few pause to ask: Who will operate, manage, and sustain these systems?
This leads to predictable implementation failures. Development partners often assume that technology adoption is a standalone solution, overlooking the critical human capability gap.
Table 1 Showing Summary of Systemic Failures and Strategic Fixes
Root Problem
Underlying Cause
Strategic Fix
Politicized HR and opaque recruitment
Governance failure
Independent oversight and merit-based systems
Weak mandatory licensing
Regulatory neglect
National framework aligned with global standards
Minimal training investment
Financial and strategic myopia
Mandated 5% OPEX for staff development
Failed technology implementations
Ignored human capacity gap
Capacity-first planning and project sequencing
Towards Resilience: Five Strategic Levers to Professionalize Kenya’s Water Sector
Kenya’s water sector is confronting a systemic talent crisis, addressing these challenges requires a structural response anchored in global best practices, informed by local constraints, and focused on long-term institutional resilience. This plan outlines 4 interlocking strategic levers designed to professionalize the sector and establish talent as a core infrastructure asset.
Lever
Core Insight
Priority Actions
Strategic Shift
Expected Outcome
Proactive Credential Verification
Shift from post-hire audits to real-time identity checks
Kenya’s water systems are only as effective as the people who plan, operate, and maintain them. As the World Bank warns, weak water institutions can turn climate risks into crises undermining resilience across health, agriculture, and energy systems.
The Brenda Nelly Sulungai case shows credential fraud is not just a governance lapse it’s a national risk multiplier. Amid climate stress and population growth, human error becomes infrastructure failure.
Reform must begin and end with people. Priority actions include:
Verifying identities and qualifications through real-time credential checks
Mandating professional licensing to close technical regulatory gaps
Investing in structured, ongoing training
Aligning performance systems with merit-based progression
Fostering a culture of accountability, technical rigor, and service
These steps reflect a central truth: talent is infrastructure.
Former President Mwai Kibaki, UNESCO’s Special Envoy for Water in Africa, put it clearly: “We need to commit ourselves to turning actions into real reforms… and together we can make Africa water secure and peaceful.”
With this blog, I would like to share a few short reflections from my experiences overseeing and supervising drilling activities over the past ten years, both from the contractor’s and the INGO/client’s perspectives.
Figure 1: Ayebale Ared on the field (Welthungerhilfe)
From the drilling contractor’s side – overseeing drilling operations
I was fortunate to work with a drilling firm that prioritized quality, accountability, and training. The work culture encouraged flexibility, allowing us to try out different drilling methodologies. One of the most valuable aspects was the emphasis on real-time logging and decision-making based on live site observations. As the overseer of the drilling operations, I had to be physically present in the field, equipped with a laptop, drilling logs, a handheld GPS, a tape measure, a V-notch Weir, a dip meter, an E.C & a pH meter, and a camera, to support real time supervision and technical decisions as drilling progressed.
There was no remote oversight; everything was site-based and collaborative. Communication within the team was strong both for daily updates and for collectively addressing any issues that had financial or technical implications.
At the time, our machinery could not compete for larger contracts, particularly those requiring the drilling of production boreholes with casing diameters larger than 5″ internal diameter (ID). While we successfully drilled several open-hole design boreholes, which are suitable for handpumps these cannot be upgraded to accommodate technologies such as solar-powered water systems (SPWS) due to initial design constraints.
Figure 3 (above) Water Sampling during borehole development showing decreasing turbidity (Source: Ayebale Ared)
From the Client’s Side (INGO) – supervising drilling
Switching to the client’s side offered me the opportunity to work with a range of drilling firms year after year. By then, I had completed the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) Professional Drilling and Borehole Management course (2019), and I was actively applying the knowledge in the field. I have worked with drillers with different equipment, resulting in more efficient drilling, constructing cased, rather than open holes. I also have had the chance to mentor and train new supervisors in professional supervision practices, proper borehole logging, and how to make sound real-time decisions at the site.
However, not all experiences have been positive
Remote, or part time supervision is common with a bigger percentage of the drilling firms I have worked with, often resulting in decisions made by drillers to minimize cost rather than address real-time field conditions which are not supervised in the field by the client. Some drilling firms opt for untrained, inexpensive overseers, which undermines the quality of work. As an example, many have no idea what real time logging is but just write a number of pipes and send short video clips to their bosses in office who make remote decisions. This usually becomes a challenge with the client’s supervisor ends up being painted bad as “a bad guy”. Without a qualified client supervisor on-site, the narrative of events can shift dramatically. I’ve observed poor siting practices, with boreholes positioned near anthills or trees leading to complex drilling challenges and post-installation issues such as silting, root intrusion, and compromised water quality. This has been subsequently verified through borehole video inspections and microbial tests. Additionally, poor gravel packing techniques have led to bridging, and inadequate borehole development has left screens poorly cleaned and functioning below standard.
These reflections underline the critical importance of professional supervision, well-trained personnel, good oversight by the drilling contractor, and appropriate on-site decision-making throughout the drilling process.
I hope these insights are helpful as we continue to improve and uphold quality in our water supply interventions.
Ayebale Ared has over 10 years of experience in the water sector, specializing in WASH programs, borehole drilling, and rehabilitation in Uganda. He has worked on both the contractor and client sides, gaining a well-rounded perspective on best and worst drilling supervision experiences and practices
By Jackson Wachira, Masresha Taye, Hussein Wario and Nancy Balfour
“In this fourth blog in the series, I hand over to Jackson Wachira, Masreesha Taya, Hussein Wario and Nancy Balfour who have a thought-provoking blog for us concerning water supplies in the Horn of Africa. It begs us to ask whether the findings from this research in Ethiopia and Kenya could change perceptions about how water development is affecting pastoralist communities?” Dr Kerstin Danert
This blog was originally published by Supporting Pastoralism and Agriculture in Recurrent and Protracted Crises (SPARC) on this webpage in August 2024.
In recent years, parts of the Horn of Africa have seen large investments in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, or ‘WASH’ as a way to build resilience to droughts. In Kenya alone, investments by civil society organisations increased by over 200% between 2017 and 2019, with a significant proportion focusing on drylands.
WASH investments come in many forms and shapes. They include the drilling of new boreholes and rehabilitation of old ones, installation of diesel and solar power systems, water resource management, water trucking, improved sanitation and ‘capacity building’.
For many development actors, the premise is that WASH investments such as these enhance the resilience of dryland communities against shocks, including climate-induced shocks such as drought.
But are investments in new water supplies in the drylands a solution, or part of the problem?
Ongoing SPARC* research in Marsabit, Northern Kenya and the Somali region of Ethiopia unpacks some nuances around water development. Interviewing community members, resource managers, elders, and both governmental and non-governmental individuals who are actively engaged in water development led us to striking findings. While the establishment of new water supplies has generally enhanced people’s access to water, overall these new investments have eroded – rather than enhanced – the resilience of pastoral communities.
Camels drinking from a trough. Credit: Masresha Taye.
Settlement and depleting resources
First, water supply systems, including deep boreholes, have led to increased settlement in areas which pastoralists traditionally reserve for dry-season grazing. Discussions with communities revealed that, while new water supplies have enhanced access to water, particularly for women and children who are designated water collectors for the family, they have also attracted other communities who frequently access these resources. Overuse of these crucial ‘fallback’ grazing areas – which pastoralists reserve for livestock in non-rainy seasons – has led to overgrazing, increasing pastoralists’ exposure to drought. Settlement has also affected the pasture reserves and seed banks around villages where water supplies are installed.
Moreover, the frequent movement of large numbers of livestock has created tension and multiple incidents of conflict between host and incoming communities. Local communities view water points as vulnerable targets for livestock raids, which heightens their sense of insecurity.
In many cases, communities shared with us that they had not been adequately consulted about the new water sources, and their unpopularity has led to backlash. In one area, due to the absence of community consultation, a civil society organisation was prevented from installing power to a borehole by the community who thought doing so would open up the area to new settlements. We also observed cases of water sources being destroyed by local communities, who feared such developments would attract outsiders to come and settle.
Overlapping water management regimes
Secondly, water developers’ failure to adequately integrate traditional water management structures undermines the success of projects.
Among Kenyan Borana communities, for instance, there is a person responsible for managing community water resources in ways that ensure cleanliness and fair access to all community members, including those migrating from other regions. This person, known as the aba erega, still helps manage water supplies today, but they have been overshadowed by newer Water Management Committees, which have become a key condition for partners investing in new water supplies.
The role of the Water Management Committee includes collecting fees that ostensibly go into repairing and maintaining new water supplies. However, most of the water supplies we visited were described by communities as highly unreliable, often breaking down a few months after they have been installed. The result has been widespread contestation among water users, who blame committee members for embezzling community funds while overseeing water systems that do not serve them when they need them most. Due to the high unreliability of many water systems in these areas, communities revert to walking long distances to access water, heavily impacting human and animal health, particularly during drought. By contrast, traditional water supplies run by indigenous water management appear to be much more reliable.
Poor quality
The third key issue which SPARC research uncovered is the poor quality of most of the new water supplies. In many areas, communities stated that they experience severe diarrhoea and stomach pains when they consume water from some boreholes because of high salinity, which affects both the people and the livestock that rely on them. The result is that water sources are often not used. In Ethiopia’s Somali region, for example, the government has developed deep boreholes in areas previously devoid of water supplies – but after initial enthusiasm, pastoralists have switched to traditional water sources due to health concerns.
The issue with salinity is recognised by government water offices, and some actors have attempted to address this challenge by installing desalination plants. However, possibly due to their complex nature, the desalination plans are not operating effectively, with one community contending that their plant worked well for a short time, before starting to discharge water that was even more saline.
Reimagining water resilience in the drylands
The provision of clean water for people and livestock is critical for the resilience of dryland communities. Yet the current approach of free-for-all investment focused only on the number of new water supplies and number of people reached often serves to undermine, rather than enhance, pastoralists’ resilience to shocks.
What does effective pastoralist water development look like? Our research suggests some ways forward. Efforts should be made to adequately integrate traditional governance mechanisms in the management of water supplies; failure to do so enhances social fragmentation and conflict. And urgent action needs to be taken to desalinate the toxic water that communities in these regions continue to consume every day, and improve desalination technologies so they are easier for communities to repair themselves.
Perhaps most importantly, development actors must acknowledge that mobile pastoralism remains the key adaptation strategy for pastoralist communities in the Horn of Africa. Water development projects must take the threats of settlement around water sources, and its attendant problems, seriously if they want to contribute to building resilience in the drylands.
The research for was carried out under SPARC-funded programme carried out by the Centre for Research and Development in Drylands (CRDD) and Masresha Taye (independent researcher) in collaboration with the Centre for Humanitarian Change. Findings from the research will be published in a Technical Report and Policy Brief on SPARC website in May 2025. A photo essay on the same is available here. A video presentation of the findings was recorded at World Water Week 2024 and available here
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