A sustainable water supply for the world’s poorest

 
By Richard Steed
“I wished people would focus more on the poorest of the world,” says Grundfos LIFELINK Managing Director Peter Todbjerg Hansen. And he has a point, today over 1 billion people have no access to safe drinking water.

Grundfos LIFELINK truly believes they have found a sustainable way to help millions of the poorest in the world get access to one of the most basic commodities for human survival – water. They have committed themselves to one of the UN’s 2015 Millennium Development Goals, to help reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

“We are hoping by 2015 to have touched the lives of thousands of people,” says Peter Todbjerg Hansen.

Grundfos was established in 1945 by the late Poul Due Jensen, today it is a truly global company selling more than 16 million pump units a year and has become a world expert in operating and managing water systems. It is one of Denmark’s best known corporations and has always had a strong commitment to corporate social responsibility.

“We are good at pumps, we know how to move water around and treat it. So it made a lot of sense for us to start being involved with sustainable safe water supplies,” says Hansen.

In 2007, the son of the founder, Niels Due Jensen (the current Chairman) travelled to the developing world and saw for himself that many rural areas had polluted ground water, making the water unsafe to drink. So he heralded an exciting new era in corporate social innovation by setting up a subsidiary called Grundfos LIFELINK. His vision was to start targeting rural communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America with a sustainable supply of safe drinking water at affordable prices.
 
The LIFELINK concept
LIFELINK is a business not a charity. It builds upon a combination of pump, renewable energy source, mobile phone and mobile banking technologies and is an innovative business model that allows consumers to access water by paying via their mobile for the amount they use.

A LIFELINK system is a single point water system with a submersible borehole pump that is powered by energy from solar panels. Water is pumped to an elevated storage tank, whereupon it is led by gravity to a tap unit in a small house. The tap unit also serves as a payment system where customers use a pre-paid smart key to access the water.

Users pay for their water via their cell phones and a mobile banking facility. The price they pay is in line with government tariffs, and much less that what they used to pay for the dirty water from the dam. All monetary transactions take place in a closed and transparent system, thereby creating what the users themselves call a ‘corruption free system’.

The sustainability of the water system is secured via a LIFELINK service contract, which is paid for by the revenue from the water consumption. Via SMS and internet, LIFELINK can remotely monitor the water system in terms of technical and financial data and thereby act proactively in relation to system break-downs. Such information is made available to all stakeholders.

The Kenya experiment
“The LIFELINK system has helped people here a lot. Now they have clean water and don't have to go to the dirty river. And also, with reliable access to clean water every day, I have started a small water business together with my wife, where we bring the water to people who live far away or cannot fetch it themselves. So more people get clean water and we make an extra coin for our family.

"With this, we can buy better food for our children and send them to good schools in the future,” says Douglas, a High school Teacher and Water Entrepreneur, Rurii village, Kenya. 




High school teacher and water entrepeneur, Douglas, in Kenya.

“We chose Kenya because historically Denmark has always had a good relationship with this country. Remember Karen Blixen lived there,” says Hansen. So back in 2009, with the help of the Kenya Red Cross Society the first solar-powered water system was installed in the Kalunkini district.

“This was our first pilot scheme, it has been up and running for 15 months now. From the start, we realised that we were going to have to work with different partners to realise our vision. In Kenya, we teamed up with the Kenya Red Cross Society, who donated the water system to the local community,” says Peter Todbjerg Hansen.

The pilot scheme looks like it is already having a big impact. During the hardest drought that Kenya has seen for many years, the community now have easy and convenient access to adequate safe water for their families, gardens and livestock.

“LIFELINK has solved some of the major technical and financial challenges that way too often lead to the breakdown of community water projects,” says Ayaz Manji, Head of Water & Sanitation, from Kenya Red Cross Society. “Firstly, because it runs on solar power, there is no need to buy diesel and keep repairing mechanical generators. This makes it cheaper and a more reliable system for the community,” he adds.

“Secondly, the financial accountability is very good as no cash is being handled or collected. This means no money is mismanaged. Instead, the money goes into the servicing of the system, which makes it even more sustainable in the long run,” he concludes.

By 2015, it is hoped over 150,000 people in Kenya will have access to safe drinking water while helping to cut the rate of diarrhoeal diseases. According to the Kenyan Government, contaminated water currently kills more people than HIV and malaria combined.

“We plan to expand and South East Asia is next. We are now looking at partnership deals in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Bangladesh and India,” says Peter Todbjerg Hansen. “We have shown that this works and can offer the complete package at a fraction of the normal cost of water. We aim to challenge and promote a value change in how the poorest access their water,” he adds.

Expansion plans
Apart from tackling an increasingly problematic global issue, Grundfos LIFELINK are also pushing the boundaries and moving into a terrority normally associated with existing NGO’s. There are already many local and international charities involved with community based water projects, but the problem seems to be there is no long term financing in place, so when the money runs out, local communities are back to contaminated water.

“Many NGO’s do amazing work on the ground, but the trouble is many are project-based, so when the grants finish so does the work. We need to start thinking long-term, not project to project. We need to finish the job and build an infrastructure so the local community can move on, grow and develop sustainably. We are helping people move on with their lives,” says Hansen.

There seems to be a variety of different options for how the expansion plans of Grundfos LIFELINK will work. In Africa, Peter Todbjerg Hansen believes the best way forward is for the water systems to be donated by charities to the community and then get them to pay for the upkeep of service and maintenance. While in South-East Asia and Latin America, it could be a combination of a commercial bank loan and part donation.

So if LIKELINK is a business and not a charity how does this fit with the idea of charging for a fundamental natural resource? It is still a contentious issue as some NGO’s believe water should be free, while others mainly in the private sector, believe that a small payment for water makes sense so the infrastructure can be maintained.

“It has become much more acceptable to pay for water so there is finance to service and maintain the system and keep it running for years to come. The majority of people already pay for water in Kenya and we make sure the pricing stays very reasonable. We don’t dictate the price, we leave that up to the community to decide, and then we will discuss and work out the price with them. Remember if there is any profit it will go straight back to the community,” concludes Peter Todbjerg Hansen. 

FACTS
Water scarcity
According to the United Nations, presently a third of the world’s population live in water-stressed countries. By 2025, it predicts that two-thirds of us will experience water shortages, with severe lack of water effecting the lives and livelihoods of 1.8 billion people. The UN World Water Assessment Programme says that by 2050, 7 billion people in 60 countries may have to cope with water scarcity.