The Water project is funded by the European Union and implemented by Istituto Oikos in partnership with Oikos East Africa and the Meru District Council. It started in 2011 and will last 4 years.

This is the largest project that we are running at the moment. The intervention area borders the Arusha National Park and extends for many miles on the eastern side of Mount Meru, a land mainly populated by Meru people, where basic facilities as roads, electricity, hospitals and schools are often absent or inadequate to people’s needs.

This Water project responded to the need, expressed by the local communities of Nkoasenga, to rehabilitate and improve their water supply system. The old distribution system was built in 1958 for around 14,000 people and it became insufficient for the more than 45,000 living in the area in 2011. Thanks to the project, the population’s demand for water, as projected for 2030, will be satisfied without entailing any environmental stress: we will rehabilitate and increase the existing pipeline from 60 Km to 170 Km, increasing clean water availability by 65% and reaching the beneficiaries with water distribution points at the maximum distance of 500 m. We will develop new storage infrastructures to enforce an adequate water distribution in order to cover the needs of the present and future population, providing 25 liters of water per person per day. Matching the needs of sanitation standards, we will also assist 600 families in building low-cost improved latrines, contributing with materials and technical design, we will introduce ECOSAN latrines as experimental basis for organic re-use in agriculture and equip 10 schools and health centers with rain harvesting installations, in order to integrate the water received through the distribution network for washing and sanitation use. Finally, we will implement a widespread hygiene and sanitation awareness raising campaign in collaboration with the Meru District.
One of the main components of the Water project is the strengthening the capacity of Water Users’ Association: we will favour the establishment of environmentally friendly procedures, support personnel trainings and the set-up of a business plan that will include tariff definition and billing systems. The aim is to build a community body able to carry out a sustainable management of local resources with friendly sustainable and efficient approach. The Water District Office will support the Water Users Association in the implementation of the activities.