Rural water treatment project gets N$60 million injection from the Adaptation Fund
The Adaptation Fund (AF) approved N$60 million for a four year project which will pilot and utilise renewable power and membrane technology at the Grünau settlement and the Bethanie village, located south of the country.
The project aims to assist the treatment of poor quality local groundwater to a level that complies with the national standards for drinking water through the use of reverse osmosis.
This project proposal which was developed by NamWater as the executing entity and was approved during the Adaptation Fund’s 30th board meeting which was held on 12 and 13 Octobe in Germany. The Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN) will be the implementation entity of the project.
The project is also endorsed by the Environment Commissioner of Namibia, Teofilus Nghitila and aims to see improved resilience of vulnerable communities and groups to climate change impact, specifically to a decrease in water quality of existing groundwater sources.
In addition to providing benefits to vulnerable communities in the target areas, the project also wants to serve to increase the capacity of government agencies to integrate climate change adaptation considerations into water supply planning and policy processes.
It is considered essential to pilot two plants in a rural setting, where the water demand of the communities differs by an order of magnitude. This would allow the opportunity to establish how plant size affected aspects such as operation, management and maintenance requirements, the unit cost of water produced, the involvement of beneficiaries; and the interest of stakeholders.
Furthermore, the execution of the project aims to yield a wide range of information and knowledge on both technical and social aspects of establishing and operating such treatment and power plants.
Caption: Similar machinery will be used for the pilot project which will bank on the reverse osmosis process to purify the water.
