By FRANCIS NJUGUNA
The 2016 Kenya Water Week Conference and Exhibition was on November 20-25 at the Kenyatta International Convention Center (KICC) in Nairobi. This conference is a collaboration between the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Council of Governors and other institutions with the aim of providing a networking opportunity for public and private sector players to interact and dialogue on water issues. I walk into this conference, disturbed by my recent experience in Ganze, Kilifi County, skeptical of what this conference is likely to achieve in ensuring that every Kenyan has water to drink.
Though now nearly a month ago, my encounter with Ganze residents lingers fresh in my mind. Citizens are forced to walk for 12km in search of water. This means covering a distance of 24km for only one 20-liter jerican of water. The least a person can take to cover such a distance is 6 hours.
This water is purely meant for human consumption, specifically drinking and cooking. The place is very hot and such, the urge to drink a lot of water is real. With this in mind, the person fetching the water will be forced to drink the same water he or she is carrying and therefore less than 20 liters of water will get back home for family use.
Women bear the blunt of waking up early to go look and fetch water for their families. Children are also forced to skip school so that they may fetch water for their families. After covering such distances, they end up sleeping in class the following day when they report to school due to exhaustion.
According to the Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS) of 2014, seven in ten households have an improved source of drinking water. In this survey, 9 in 10 households in urban areas have improved drinking water compared to 59% of households in rural areas. Moreover, it takes 30 minutes or longer to obtain drinking water for more than one-quarter of households in Kenya.
The 2014 Uwezo Kenya Annual Learning Assessment has interesting statistics on water availability at villages, schools and households across Kenya. According to the data, 56% of villages in Kenya do not have a protected water point. The data also established that 33% of public primary schools do not have a water source within the school compound and yet, for those with water source within the school compound, they actually don’t have water throughout the year. More worrying is that the average walking time to and from water source for 14% of the schools is at least 30 minutes.
Uwezo further show that only 25% of households in Kenya have access to piped water, while a similar percentage fetch water from the river. 13% percent of households in Kenya buy water from vendors, 4% depend on rainwater while 33% have either a shallow well or borehole as their main source of water. Nearly 4 in 10 (38%) of Kenyans do not treat drinking water.
So, what are we celebrating this week? Available evidence shows that the average Kenyan either has no reliable access to water, or drinks water not fit for human consumption.
Yet, Kenya is surrounded by fresh water bodies namely Lake Victoria, Lake Naivasha, Lake Turkana and very many fresh rivers flowing to Indian Ocean. While a lot of water from Lake Naivasha is used by elite flower farms for irrigation, most neighbouring rural households do not have access to clean and safe drinking water.
As the Ministry of Water and Irrigation together with the Council of Governors convene for the 2016 Kenya Water Week, three questions require our attention. One, how will the devolved government system accelerate access to water for the excluded communities? Two, we save money on treating water, and spend it on communicable diseases. So, when will we invest to ensure that every Kenyan consumes clean water? Lastly, just as we connected every school to the national power grid, is it time we embarked on ensuring that our children in schools have reliable clean drinking water.
The matter is urgent, as W.H. Auden cautions - Thousands have lived without love, not one without water!
Francis Njuguna is a researcher with Twaweza East Africa and the Uwezo Learning Assessment. The article does not necessarily represent the opinion of Twaweza East Africa. For feedback, send an email to fnjuguna@twaweza.org.