by Dotun Adekile, Nigeria
I regret to inform you all that Robin Temple Hazell, one of the pioneers of systematic groundwater development in Africa, a member of the RWSN and a contributor to Dgroup discussions, passed away in his home, Bodmin, Cornwall on Sunday, 19th February, 2017. He would have been 90 years on 12th March, 2017.
Continue reading “Obituary: Robin Temple Hazell (1927-2017)”
August 16, 2016 – from https://waterjournalistsafrica.com/2016/08/16/nigeria-kakura-residents-laments-lack-of-portable-drinking-water/
Residents of Kakura community in Chikun Local government Area of Kaduna State northwest are lamenting lack of portable water within their village despite their closeness to the city.
The people drink from a pond covered with dirts particularly during dried season.
A visit by water Journalists Africa reporter to the village with about 1000 inhabitants discovered that the community lacks access to good and clean water to drink.
Lamenting on the issue, the Village head, Ishaya Gwamna said in rainy reason all well in the village get dried off.
” We do suffered a lot during dried season because all wells within the village get dried off. The only borehole provided to us by an NGO in year 2000 has stopped working.
“Now our women fetched water from well but as soon as the rain stop they move to the pond to fetch water,” he said.
Another Community Leader Sunday Kakura said they are not happy drinking from a pond shared by people and cows.
“We have no option but to drink from same pond because we just have to survive. But we need assistance from any individual to provide us with boreholes in the village. We are subsistence farmers and need government intervention in our village,” he said.
The village head Ishaya Gwamna also expressed sadness with regards to lack of portable water for his people.
“We vote during elections because politicians do come to seek for our votes. But they never fulfilled their promises to us.
“We are appealing to philanthropists, other agencies and even the state government to provide us with primary health care center where our women and children can access health care. We equally need drinking water in the community which is a big challenge to us,” he said.
Mohammad Ibrahim June 04, 2016 The Nigerian Turkish International College NTIC has constructed over 90 hand pumps and electric motorized boreholes in many villages, hamlets and schools within Kaduna state in Nigeria the last four years of its existence. Davud Sagir, the director for the college in Kaduna says that the benefiting communities include Kauya […]
Christian Chibuzo Maduka May 26, 2016 Eleme town is one of the various towns inhabited by the Eleme people of Ogoniland, the indigenous peoples that inhabit the Niger Delta region of Southeast Nigeria. The Eleme people live in ten village-clusters situated in Eleme Local Government Area (ELGA) of Rivers State, around 20 km East of […]
via ‘Water Everywhere but Not a Drop to Drink’: Nigeria’s Eleme People Cry Out — WaterSan Perspective
by Dr Kerstin Danert, Skat Foundation
In Lagos, a city of over 17 million people, water demands are mainly being met from tapping the groundwater that lies beneath the city. Boreholes provide water directly at people’s homes or business premises. Borehole construction is being paid for by householders and businesses themselves. Water vendors, selling water in jerry cans or trucks are also prolific. Given the limited reach of the piped infrastructure, much of the water vended is likely to also originate from below ground. In fact, exploitation of the large, relatively shallow aquifers that lie below Lagos is one of the main reasons that the city can continue to grow at all.
Continue reading “Manually Drilled Wells: Providing water in Nigeria’s Megacity of Lagos and beyond”
I was lucky enough to attend this year’s Water & Health Conference at the University of North Carolina. I was even luckier to make it as the skirts of Hurricane Sandy swept up the Atlantic coast before crashing into the American North East.
It was a great opportunity to meet, face-to-face, many RWSN members who have been communicating with online and meet a whole bunch of new people. It was really inspiring to hear their stories and find out more about their organisations and research. Here are just some of my highlights from the event:
Continue reading “Sustainable water services take ‘Water & Health’ Conference by storm”
RWSN is currently hosting a 3 week discussion on ‘Cost Effective Boreholes’ as part of our Sustainable Groundwater Development Theme. Here are some highlights so far:
It is very interesting to read the inputs so far from Kenya, Zambia, Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Uganda.
From the discussions so far, it seems that the Kenya and Ethiopia have established regulatory frameworks for water well drilling (thanks Chrispine and Tesfaye). In the Kenyan case, government regulation, which is limited by capacity constraints is augmented by the monitoring of activities by the drillers association. It will be interesting to hear more on this from Chrispine and others in Kenya. In contrast Zambia (thanks Daniel) lacks any regulation with respect to groundwater resources. There is thus no registration of boreholes in the country whatsoever and even drilling records must not be collected. Although a water resources management act was passed in Zambia 2011 it still awaits launch and implementation. Perhaps there are also others with ideas for Zambia. In Sudan, we hear from Harm Bouta about a very fragmented drilling sector with no strict regulations in place, but that there are other initiatives taking place in Sudan from which we could learn more.
Continue reading “Realities of water well drilling in Africa: e-discussion highlights so far”
Rural Water Supply Network - blog 