Transforming Kajiado Through Community-Driven Solutions

The WaterStarters Project in Kajiado is redefining community access to safe water while serving as a catalyst for economic growth. On the slopes of Kajiado County in Kenya—an arid and semi-arid region—the community has long faced failed rains and frequent droughts. This innovative initiative not only addresses urgent water needs but also fosters entrepreneurial opportunities, enhances agricultural practices, and strengthens local economies.

Climate change is a global issue requiring coordinated efforts to find lasting solutions. In Kajiado County, an arid and semi-arid region in Kenya, the community has faced failed rains and frequent droughts. These have severely affected agricultural activities, crop yields, food security, and livestock production.

To address these challenges, Amref Health Africa, MegaGroup, and local communities have partnered under the WaterStarters Project. This initiative aims to improve access to safe, clean water while fostering economic growth in the region. The water project is improving local economies by turning water access into an entrepreneurial opportunity. What started as a way to address the water shortage has developed into a framework for fast, sustainable business growth that boosts livelihoods.

The WaterStarters Project employs a franchise model that blends a 42.5 percent grant, 42.5 percent recoverable finance, and a fifteen percent franchisee contribution. The model is open to groups like *CBOs but also to individuals, all referred to as franchisees. This model ensures community ownership and the long-term viability of the water projects. Its goal is to shift communities from only receiving aid, to becoming partners, by encouraging investment.

Kennedy Omwaka, Amref’s WaterStarters Project Lead, explains that the 42.5 percent recoverable finance creates a revolving fund that enables them to reach more underserved populations with the same resources.

‘This is what sets our strategy apart; we combine data and technology and pool funding with traditional water systems and health promotion to produce a franchise idea that generates social benefit and financial return. Using water to make a difference is not a novel concept. What is novel is that the capital investments are made in a new way that promotes community engagement and ownership,’ he explains.

As a community-centred initiative, it ensures effective management and long-term sustainability of the water distribution system. This initiative transforms lives, one drop at a time, and ensures everyone can access water for their households, livestock, and agricultural activities.

This franchise concept is a great example of the importance of community-oriented approaches to solving water problems globally. Omwaka explains that so far, five projects are complete, with the sixth one signed, reaching approximately 25,000 people with access to sustainable, safe water.

‘Additionally, over six thousand school-going children have benefited from access to water in their schools, creating a clean learning environment and relieving them of the time taken to fetch water. Now, more time can be spent on learning activities, leading to improved education outcomes for both girls and boys.’

The Game Changer

Gladys Topisia, a resident and an entrepreneur from Kajiado, recalls how she and her five children would travel long distances to collect unsafe water. ‘We fetched water from the Olkejuado River, and after carrying it home, we had to walk another long distance and wait in line again for more.

‘This exhausting routine left little time for my children to attend school, and it also prevented women from engaging in other activities. With close access to safe water, my children today no longer miss school to help fetch water,’ she says while picking kale from her kitchen garden, which she irrigates with water from the project.

To empower the community, Omwaka says that through the project, they teach people how to set up and practise integrated farming, as Topisia, who started farming recently, is currently doing. Integrated farming is an agricultural system incorporating poultry farming, crop plantation, livestock, and tree planting, all of which form an ecosystem. Topisia has a variety of crops, including fruit trees, onions, kale, spinach, and beans. She also has a tree nursery.

‘Incorporating all these activities has improved my harvest and income, allowing me to provide enough farm produce to feed my family, livestock, and chicken on the farm. I also have more produce for the business owners in the Kajiado town market. I have about fifteen business partners who buy fresh produce from my farm and resell it in the market,’ Topisia says.

Peter Letuya, a Kajiado County resident, tells us that with the project, more people have immersed themselves in farming to take care of their households’ needs, as well as for commercial purposes. With more people selling farm products, securing business spaces at the Kajiado town market is becoming a challenge.

The community hopes the government will expand the number of market stalls in the township soon to accommodate this growth. ‘There are vast areas of land in this county that are unused, and through ongoing training, more people are looking to venture into the agricultural business. Most of them gave up because it was dry and there was no rainfall.’

In addition to supporting agriculture, improved water availability has diversified economic opportunities for livestock in Kajiado. The region’s economy largely depends on selling cattle, sheep, and goats. ‘With sufficient water for our livestock, we can now take advantage of other by-products like hide, wool, bones, horns, and manure. A few years ago, we lost many animals to drought, with some dying from water contamination,’ says Letuya.

Agriculture Revived

Isaac Tobiko, a youth leader of Nareto Latia Indigenous People’s Programme, one of the *CBOs that Amref is partnering with in Kajiado County, guides us through an ongoing water project. He explains that water is just one part of the solution; the project also promotes economic empowerment within the community. To ensure transparency in project implementation, the franchise model is well explained to the community, its benefits outlined, and regular communication is maintained throughout the project.

In arid and semi-arid regions, irrigation is vital for crop productivity and agricultural development, as rainfall alone cannot support consistent agrarian production. The WaterStarters project has also trained the community to adopt crop rotation as a key strategy for maintaining long-term field productivity.

Tobiko, who conducts some of the training, says that the community no longer needs to leave their fields fallow. Most people now practise crop rotation to increase agricultural production and boost sustainability.

The farms are now thriving and on the path to becoming profitable enterprises. Access to reliable water has transformed them into businesses that support families and create employment for more people in the community.

On another farm in Kumpa, Kajiado, that the Kumpa Water Project Franchisee owns, we meet Brian Nyongesa, the farm manager. Preparation is ongoing at the farm after harvesting onions to plant maize and beans. ‘We are not going to concentrate on just one crop. Now that we have water resources, we can attempt to grow crops like cabbage, tomatoes, maize, and beans. We can now easily adapt to the trends and demands of the market while taking advantage of crop rotation to fight pests that affect one food crop.’

Nyongesa says that irrigation has given young people a lot of opportunities. For example, more than fifty young people were hired to bundle and load the onions in readiness for transportation to the market. ‘Additionally, we have a group of young people, both men and women, who would report daily to ensure the harvested crops are dry enough to sell before the packaging begins.’

Promoting lasting health benefits in this region has been another vital achievement of the WaterStarters Project in Kajiado. Community health promoters (*CHPs) have been trained and assigned to sensitise households on safe water handling and storage. “Kajiado health promoters offer any needed water treatment chemicals such as chlorine, and they also assist in filtration. These water treatment chemicals are usually supplied by the government and other partners and put in a nearby health facility.” The *CHPs pick the water treatment tabs known as Aquatabs from the health facility, take them to the households, and train the community on how to use them,” says Omwaka.

Naomi Cali, a *CHP, explains that she promotes access to proper sanitation by sensitising households and encouraging them to construct and use toilets. ‘We also educate the society on general hygiene and proper handwashing practices among community members. The scarcity of water makes children more susceptible to water-related diseases such as diarrhoea.

‘Due to their vulnerability, children in low-income areas, particularly those living in informal settlements, are more likely to suffer from diarrhoea and drink contaminated water, which can lead to morbidity and even death. Compared to 2022, when the project had not been started, there are now fewer children afflicted by water-related illnesses,’ she says.

Local Ownership

Most of Kenya’s water projects have had appalling performance, with many water points needing repairs or becoming non-functional. Omwaka says that enhancing involvement and ownership of their water projects among local communities through franchisee contributions has made this project sustainable in the long run.

The WaterStarters project employs experts who build community capacity by using technology like real-time monitoring systems and smart prepaid metres to enhance the operation and management of rural water schemes. This approach improves efficiency, transparency, and accountability in managing and collecting water revenues.

By creating a pool of funds contributed by the franchisees for crucial operations and maintenance, the downtime of the water projects has been reduced to less than 72 hours. Coupled with maintenance service contracts, this makes maintenance services affordable and reliable for all franchised units.

‘The franchise concept has generated jobs, allowing us to have operators and security guards to guarantee the smooth operation of the water projects. A portion of the money the water project makes pays their salaries,’ says Tobiko, the youth leader.

Additionally, the water projects generate revenue for the franchisees. After covering all operational costs, any remaining profit goes directly to the franchisee. When the 42.5 percent recoverable finance in the form of a loan is also cleared, the franchisee continues running the water project and earns more profits.

With an additional twelve projects currently in the pipeline, Omwaka says they are working towards constructing six hundred water sources by 2030. While there is still much work, the WaterStarters Project in Kajiado is a step in the right direction. In Kumpa, the price of water was twenty shillings (0.14 Euros), but this has been reduced to five shillings (0.036 Euros) per 20-litre container. Kumpa Primary School, which was spending over 30,000 shillings (210 Euros) every month on water services, is now paying around 12,000 shillings (82 Euros) monthly. With this shift, the WaterStarters Project in Kajiado is portrayed as a business-driven approach that enables local communities to take part in being solution providers to the challenges within them.

It is already evident in Kajiado that the WaterStarters Project in Kajiado is a great way of promoting community ownership in projects, ensuring the sustainability and scalability of solutions-oriented approaches. The local ownership aspect of the WaterStarters Project in Kajiado franchise model can be replicated and scaled in other sectors, counties, and countries to ensure project survival and continuity beyond the initial investment.

Edited by “Pius Okore”