5-6pm in the Herbertson Room and the Car Park, School of Geography and the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY
Delivering reliable drinking water to millions of rural people in Africa and Asia is an elusive and enduring global goal. A systematic information deficit on the performance and demand of infrastructure investments limits policy design and development outcomes.
The ‘Smart Handpump’ project started in 2010 in Kenya to explore new technologies, methods and models to understand and respond to this challenge. The design of a mobile-enabled data transmitter provided foundational data on hourly water usage and failure events reliably and at low cost.
Performance-based maintenance companies were set up in Kenya which improved handpump reliability by an order of magnitude. This helped established the FundiFix model with a user pre-payment model and the recent registration of a Trust Fund as results-based financial instrument in partnership with government, UNICEF and the private sector. New research is modelling the accelerometry data from the handpumps to predict aquifer depth.
We invite you to test the Smart Handpump in the car park and debate how the ‘accidental infrastructure’ of rural handpumps can spark bolder initiatives to deliver water security for millions of poor people in Africa and Asia.
Thanks to all partners and funders: Oxford University’s Computational Health Informatics Lab, Department of Engineering Science, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Saïd Business School, School of Geography and the Environment, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment; UK Department for International Development; Economic and Social Research Council; Natural Environment Research Council; University of Nairobi
