KENYA LAUNCHES AFRICAS FIRST WATER FUND TO COMBAT HORTAGES.

NAIROBI, MARCH 20, 2015.


Kenya launches Africa’s first water fund on Friday, a public-private partnership aimed at raising $15 million to provide clean water to 9.3 million people by protecting the basin of the country’s longest river.

The nature conservancy, a U.S- based charity backing the fund, says it will provide $2 in benefit for every $1 invested.  It said the fund could serve as a model for other water stressed African nations dealing with the impact of climate and population growth.

“Our civilization will survive or will cease to exist just because of one element-water,” The nature conservancy’s director of field programmes in Africa, Charles Lucian, said at the launch. “At the moment there is very little investment, and this is a way of trying to begin to shift the mindset”.

Kenya swing between drought and flood virtually every year, with vast sums on aid as crop either wilt or are swept away, along with people and homes. The Tana River basin supplies 95 of the capital Nairobi’s water and provides half of Kenya’s hydropower generated electricity. It also supplies water to a million farms.

The fund plans to invest I agro forestry, drip irrigation, terracing and planting vegetation on riverbanks. It has started a pilot in which 5,000 farmers belonging to the Green Belt Movement, founded by Kenya’s Nobel peace prize winner, the late Wangari Maathai, are planting trees.

“This is the next step to the legacy of Professor Wangari Maathai,” said Aisha Karanja, head of the Greenbelt Movement. “I think this is the best conservation and environmental thing that has happened to this country because everyone is involved”.

Deforestation and quarrying have caused massive soil erosion at the source of the 1000 km long Tana River. Sediment is washed into the water, reducing both quality and supply.

Kenya’s population of around 45 million is predicted to erosion by 2045, according to the World Bank, increasing pressure on the water supplies.

The fund will also make it cheaper to produce hydropower and clean water. Kenya Electricity Generating Company will earn an extra $600,000 annually while Nairobi City water and Sewerage Company will save $250,000 a year through lower water filtering costs.

These Government-owned companies are supporting the initiative, as well as Coca-Cola and East Africa Breweries.

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