World Vision Kenya has called on the government, non-governmental organizations, microfinance facilities and water stakeholders to come up with a water financing programme where citizens can access credit to procure water storage equipment.
Speaking to KNA in Maralal, the Technical Lead for Water Sanitation and Hygiene Programme for World Vision Kenya Peter Karanja said that access to credit for Kenyans to get water tanks or dig small dams will help a long way in ensuring that they have water for use in dry seasons.
Karanja said harvesting runaway rain water will not only save Kenyans from water shortage but also from havoc caused by flooding especially in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) regions in the country.
“Many people lack access to water storage equipment. The government and all stakeholders in the sector can come up with microfinance that can support people just to go and procure tanks for rain water harvesting and can use the water during dry seasons,” Karanja said.
“People can use the harvested water for economic development, have kitchen gardens for small scale irrigation, improve their nutrition and take the ASALs areas in the country out of water crisis and be able to sustain themselves,” he added.
The water expert further argued that there is a need to improve access to water and its quality in respect to the population by exploring ground water.
“Rather than waiting for the rains which have not been enough for three years, how well can we do ground water exploration so Kenyans have uninterrupted access to safe water?” he posed.
“Not all ground water is of good quality but water technologies have been put in place to ensure that once explored and the water quality is not good enough, we can make technological interventions to convert the water for good consumption,” he said.
By Erick Kyalo
