Tanzanian Water Project

The Budekwa area in Tanzania suffers from a critical shortage of water, where currently only 18% of households have access to safe and clean water. AuCom is funding a project in a joint effort from World Vision, the Government of Tanzania, the local District Council, and the people of Budekwa to provide safe water to 1,373 households.

The Budekwa Area Development Programme (ADP) is situated in Mwagala Division, Maswa District in Tanzania’s Shinyanga Region. Its eight villages cover an area of 345km2 and have a total population of over 26,350 people.

In this culture, the women or girls collect water, which may take over 2 hours. This puts pressure on schooling and household tasks each day. The average household of 6 people require 10 litres per person per day, but most can only collect 40 litres a day.

	Finding water before
	Finding water after

The Tanzanian government aims to ensure every household has access to water with a maximum distance of 400m.  To quote the Tanzanian Poverty Reductions Strategy “The contribution of the water sector to poverty reduction is through reduction of time spent in fetching water improved health standards, creating conducive environment for increasing school attendance and increased opportunity for social economic activities.
Startied in January 2008, the project supported by AuCom will sink 31 protected shallow wells to a depth of 10-20m to reduce water collection time to less than 30 minutes across the area. This is just one initiative for the area.

This project includes:

• Training for water user groups on shallow well management
• Training for pump technicians
• Facilitating water villages committee to establish water by-law.