eWATER newsletter: edition 3
Alison Wedgwood, Founder
eWATERservices has just dispensed 1 billion litres of water to over 350,000 customers. This is an exciting achievement for a company founded in 2015.
Our goal has always been to change the approach to rural water supply and delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015 our mission was focused on designing the Smart Pre-Payment Taps, with the hope that these would be sold to water providers to help their programme delivery. But we soon realised that the pre-payment technology was only a small part of the solution. As the years progressed we learnt that if we were just collecting money and then handing it back to a community water committee, poor operation and maintenance led to major equipment failure and our dashboard was soon full of ‘low flow’ alerts in over a third of our villages.
Therefore, in 2021 eWATERservices changed its model to become a Full Service Water Operator. eWATER would take on contracts from County and Government Water Ministries to rehabilitate or build and operate water programmes for a minimum of 10 years. Local professional staff run the systems taking the stress and responsibility away from local people; because we understood that consumers didn’t want to operate a $300,000 borehole, pump and piped system. They simply want to get on with leading their own productive lives.
eWATER now operates in over 100 villages in Tanzania, The Gambia and Ghana. Right now, some of these projects are still operated by other NGOs and Water Authorities, and on average these projects only deliver water 65% of the time. To eWATER, we don’t think a 35% failure rate is acceptable and we continue to move away from this model. In The Gambia, where eWATER is running the complete water operation, our data proves that water is available over 95% of the time. That is true sustainable water delivery and we are very proud of this achievement.
We believe, as I'm sure you do, that anything less than 95% water availability at any time of the day means people are leading difficult, disruptive, unhealthy lives and in the 21st Century that is a catastrophic failure.
Enjoy the third edition,
Alison Wedgwood
1 billion litres for our customers
Proving the concept of eWATER on a country level is important for a business, but it is not the most important thing to our customers. What matters to our customers is that they can access clean 24/7 water, every day of the year.
And with eWATER, they can.
1 billion litres served is a reflection of the excellent performance and service we have provided to our customers ever since our first Smart Tap was installed. Wellingaraba is a village in The Gambia which was one of the very first to receive a Smart Tap. Here we try to illustrate the impact of those litres on the communities we serve.
Wellingaraba, The Gambia
eWATER has been working in Wellingaraba for 6 years now. In that time we have provided 33 million litres of clean water resulting in:
17 businesses starting
24 market stalls springing up
Population growth and village area growth of around 20%
A significant reduction in water-borne disease
Increased attendance at the school of 1,200 children that have great water access with their own eWATER system
They even named their football team ‘eWATER FC’ as a thank you for 6 years of world-class service.
“We are very happy about this system. Before eWATER came in we were facing very many difficulties but when you came in everything went smoothly. We are very grateful for your company because you have moved us from difficult times.”
-Wellingaraba Village Administrator