Water For People began working in Malawi in 2000. Water-related diseases, including diarrhea, cholera and typhoid fever, are rampant and hinder Africa’s developmental prospects. Typical projects support the implementation of hand-pumped water systems, tap stands from gravity-fed systems, and a wide variety of latrine technologies including eco-sanitation latrines which compost human feces and urine into productive fertilizer.

Official government statistics relating to water and sanitation coverage (67% and 46%, respectively) in Malawi are considered by most to be overstated. There are insufficient resources available for measuring either population or coverage of these basic services. The urban water coverage estimate of 67% masks the situation in the unplanned peri-urban settlements that are not included in official statistics. The estimated rural water coverage figure of 62% may fail to account for the significant percentage of nonfunctioning facilities. As for sanitation, the usefulness of the figures depends on the definition of adequate sanitation. Almost all the facilities in Malawi are traditional pit latrines, the majority of which are merely holes in the ground and inadequate to prevent fecal-oral disease transmission. Most major agencies active in Malawi, including the government, estimate rural sanitation coverage at 30% or less.

The obstacles to progress in the water and sanitation sector in Malawi include the following:
• Until recently, there had been little political leadership on water and sanitation issues.
• Historically, people depended on the government for maintenance. Since the government ended this responsibility, people have not been adequately trained or motivated to exercise ownership and maintenance of water services. Some people, especially in cities, vandalise infrastructure and waste water.
• Agencies working in the sector do not coordinate well with each other at the local, district or national level. Many rural agencies are city-based and may lack real empathy for rural people. Some agencies continue to implement programmes directly rather than through or with the communities.
• At the local level, powerful people may affect sustainability by abusing their power. For example, leaders allocate water points for political purposes, not according to need. Maintenance committee members and/or traditional leaders misuse the funds that have been raised from the community and fail to account for them, so people stop contributing more money.
• Agencies offer communities a limited choice of technology. Wrong technologies are used; most commonly boreholes are installed where shallow wells would be cheaper and more sustainable. Equipment such as pumps are used for which spare parts are unavailable due to lack of a reliable distribution mechanism across the country. There is a shortage of technically-competent people to supervise work and ensure its technical quality.
• Many people who lack water, sanitation and hygiene services do not know what to request, or from whom. They are commonly either not informed or wrongly informed by the various agencies. Many people are illiterate and therefore unable to learn about the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene.
• Malawi’s climate is dry and increasingly unpredictable, with surface and groundwater resources becoming depleted. Catchments are degraded, so spring and stream sources for gravity-flow supplies dry up.

Water For People works to build a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease. This is our vision.

We’re on a mission. We work with people and partners to develop innovative and long-lasting solutions to the water, sanitation, and hygiene problems in the developing world. We strive to continually improve, to experiment with promising new ideas, and to leverage resources to multiply our impact.

In 2009 Water For People supported imporved access to safe water for 4,969 people and imporved access to sanitation for 10,400 people.