Ethiopia

Background

In Mulataa, Digga region, near the Ethiopian provincial capital Nekempte, there is the Mana Barunsa Primary School with 600 pupils. Around this school, many farming families (approx. 2,800 people) live widely scattered in small settlements and close to a now dried up spring.

Strategy
Water from a neighbouring valley will be piped to Mulataa through spring tapping, the construction of wells and pumping stations.

Realisation
The result of the plant construction which started in Mulataa in 2010 is the tapping of four high-yield springs in a neighbouring valley. The extracted water will be directed to a water intake and a cattle watering place.
In April 2014 the successful supply system was inaugurated – but without electricity in the pump house. The last phase, the laying of a pipeline and the connection of the water pump in the pump house to the public grid, was completed at the end of 2016.
Since then, several tapped springs, two intermediate tanks and six tapping points have been supplying the Mulataa settlement, including the teachers and pupils of the Mulataa secondary school located on a hill, with clean drinking water. The water to the school is pumped by an electric pump from an intermediate tank in the valley up to an elevated tank on the school grounds.

Partner
In the planning and monitoring of the implementation as well as in the long-term control of these projects, the WaterFoundation has been cooperating for years with the EDA-E (Environmentalists Development Association – Ethiopia) in Addis Ababa.

Costs
The budget for the overall Mulataa spring tapping project is EUR 34 000, including planning, administrative, construction and logistics costs. The main donor is the Rotary Club Schwäbisch Hall.

Current status
Power supply from the public grid proved to be very obstructive. Not only did the construction of the supply line cost considerable effort: the WaterFoundation was unable and unwilling to meet the expectations of the responsible authorities for financial “help”. In order to keep the supply system running, lengthy repairs were also repeatedly necessary, because there were numerous attacks on the laid pipes.
For this reason, the WaterFoundation has joined forces with the locally established NGO Garuma Social Development Association, which also works with Rotarians in Germany, in order to use their expertise and local networks to ensure the success of the project and keep it viable for the future.