When a drought deepens, water trucking saves lives. It is fast, it is visible, and it buys a community time. What it does not do is fix the reason the taps ran dry in the first place. That is why every emergency water response AID runs is paired with a plan for what happens after the emergency ends.
Start with what the area already has
Each site is assessed on its own terms. In some woredas the answer is rehabilitating a borehole that silted up years ago. In others it is a shallow well, a birka, or a river intake feeding a public water point. Choosing the cheapest option on paper is rarely the choice that survives a second dry season.
- 13 boreholes rehabilitated and expanded
- 7 elevated concrete tanks constructed
- 12 underground cemented cisterns, known locally as birkas, built
- 6 solar water supply schemes installed
- 18 public water points constructed
Solar power changes the arithmetic
Diesel pumps fail for a simple reason: fuel costs money that a rural water committee does not reliably have. Solar schemes shift the cost to the front of the project, where a donor budget can absorb it, and leave the community with running costs it can actually meet.
A water point is not finished when the water arrives. It is finished when the community can keep it running without us.
Hygiene promotion is part of the infrastructure
Hardware alone does not reduce disease. Alongside construction, our teams reached 425,000 people with hygiene and sanitation promotion campaigns and built 75 emergency latrine blocks. Water quality is protected at the source, along the collection route, and inside the household.
