STAWI FundiFix Activity
The Sustainable, Transformational and Accessible Water Interventions (STAWI) Addendum to the Diversifying Partnerships in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (DiP-WASH) is a three-year (2023-2026) USAID-funded Activity (STAWI FundiFix) being implemented in Kenya by FundiFix in partnership with the Catholic Diocese of Lodwar’s Turkana Water Project (TWP) alongside the County Governments of Kitui and Turkana. The STAWI FundiFix Activity,, aims to secure safe and reliable water services for more than 35,000 people in rural communities and increase their resilience to climate-shocks with further health, social, and economic benefits.
CONTEXT
Service provision in rural areas still lags behind urban areas; statistics show that 1 in 2 people living in rural Kenya (~17 million people) lack access to basic water service and 1 in 3 people rely on surface water for drinking needs (WHO/UNICEF, 2017). Geographically, service levels in the Arid and Semi-arid lands (ASALs) of Kenya lag far behind these national statistics exacerbating social inequalities for the one in five Kenyans who live in these 29 of 47 Counties in Kenya, where public services such as education, health, water, and energy are variable and often of low quality. High non-functionality of rural waterpoints remains a drag on the achievement of universal, safe, and reliable rural water services, with estimates indicating that an estimated 30-45 percent of the rural waterpoints in Kenya are not working (Nyaga, 2019). In Kitui for instance, the provision of drinking water is a major challenge with two in five of Kitui’s residents reporting drinking from rivers or surface water as their main water source. Likewise, in Turkana, the second largest county in Kenya with an estimated 81% of the 941,291 people living in rural areas, up to 37% County population lacks a drinking water service forcing them to rely on surface water (KNBS, 2019).
When the water points fail, the social and economic impacts on the fragile local livelihoods of the agro-pastoral communities in the ASALs are multifaceted. It leads to health and time cost implications on rural households, and impacts livelihoods from lost or lower-value livestock, while it is the poor families, women, and girls that are most affected (Foster et al., 2018; Hoque et al., 2018 & Katuva et al., 2020). Water supply failures also cause or aggravate humanitarian impacts and conflicts in these fragile contexts.
SCOPE OF WORK
To accelerate sustainable access to safe and reliable water services in rural ASALs, the STAWI FundiFix Activity is implementing the following interventions from 2023 to 2026, aligned with the four STAWI Activity objectives, excluding Objective 1:
Objective 2: Increase the sustainability of water service delivery: Under this objective, the STAWI FundiFix Activity aims to expand professionalized operation and maintenance (O&M) service coverage to more rural waterpoints in Kitui and Turkana, to increase number of communities with guaranteed safe and reliable water service. Further, the Activity will support training of Communities, and Counties, for effective accountability mechanisms in service delivery. The Activity will also introduce an Apprenticeship program on professionalized management of rural schemes, for training and job creation for >100 women and youth from the nine STAWI Counties, namely: Garissa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Samburu, Turkana, Wajir, Kitui, Makueni, and Taita Taveta.
Objective 3: Improve management, efficiency, and equitable access to water used for productive purposes. STAWI FundiFix Activity will go beyond securing water supply for domestic need to also introduce professionalized maintenance services for rural piped schemes used by pastoralists and their livestock, providing more reliable water to livestock and incorporating livestock-focused improvements where appropriate.
Objective 4: Improve collaboration and learning across stakeholders, by influencing uptake of professionalized O&M models for rural water through CLA with other STAWI Activities and local WASH actors in the Counties.
BUDGET: USD $ 2,000,000
DURATION: 2023-2026
ACTIVITY LOCATIONS: Kitui and Turkana Counties, Kenya.
IMPLEMENTING PARTNER: FundiFix
KEY PARTNERS
- The Catholic Diocese of Lodwar’s
- Turkana Water Project (TWP)
- County Government of Kitui
- County Government of Turkana
PARTNER CONTACT
Name: Patrick Namu
Position: Chief of Party, STAWI FundiFix
Tel: +254 720 934690
Email: patrick.namu@fundifix.org
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Email: usaidkea@usaid.gov
Website: www.usaid.gov/kenya
Facebook: USAIDKenya
Twitter: @USAIDKenya
