Details

Username

FairWaterAfrica

Name

Paul van Beers

Gender

Man

Residence

Amsterdam

Occupation

WatSan Advisor

Hobbies

Luchtvaart

Education

Hydogeology

The numbers

Number of messages

1

Average per day

0.00

Date of birth

62 Years

E-mail address

Registered on

03-11-2009 11:00

Last visit

02-04-2010 16:24

Website

Bekijk FairWaterAfrica's website.

Biography

FairWater Foundation is a registered charity (NL-34316771) in the Netherlands. The initiator Paul van Beers holds a M.Sc. in Environmental Hydrology & Hydrogeology and has a vast international background and professional contacts based on 28 years of research, and project management in Rural & Peri-Urban Water Supply, Hydrology and Environment in East as well as in Western Africa.

His motivation to start with FairWater is to promote a no-nonsense approach to solve water & sanitation (WatSan) problems for the poor people in Africa as an alternative for the complicated but not effective "development aid" water projects.

Based on his experience with many water projects in Africa over the last 20 years, the overall conclussion was that still most water projects for poor people are in fact not responding to the basic underlying problems in the rural areas and shanty towns.

Although a continuous flow of "well-intended" but not-effective WatSan projects flooded Africa, it brought little or now relief for the people that were supposed to profit from these billions, Why?

The key-problem is not how to implement solutions at low-cost, but rather how to implement solutions that can be maintained at low cost.

...

My connection to Africa

The idea of FairWater started in 2002 in Kenya, during his work as a director of the Rural Water Development Project (RWD) in Kisii. RWD is one of the largest and most successful water projects in Kenya at the time that provided over 1.500 water points (dug wells, boreholes, rainwater harvesting systems and spring protections) and about 16.000 sanitation slabs over about 15 years. But nevertheless, sustainability was already an upcoming problem and was seriously dealt with and discussed with the staff of RWD.

With the local RWD staff he developed the Kisii water filter (low-cost household water filter system) and the concept of the FairWater Africa pump a community handpump that should be able to operate under harsh consitions for many years without continuous breakdowns and no need for spare parts. After Kenya he continued the development and testing of this handpump with the much appreciated support of several NGOs, specifically OXFAM-Kenya, in Angola, Malawi, Kenya and Mozambique. With ups and downs, the final result is indeed an extremely simple & strong community handpump that can pump up to 100m. deep without the need for spare parts. The FairWater Africa pump is now available through FairWater partners in Africa and in the Netherlands.

Apart from his WatSan work in Kenya, he also has a long term working experience in Portugal (Hydro-geological studies in coastal aquifers 1980 - 1984), Burkina Faso & Mauretania (Hydrogeologist and Project Manager 1985 - 1993), The Netherlands (Project Manager Environmental studies 1994 - 1996), Mozambique (Country Director NGO SaWa 1996 - 1998), Kenya (RWD Program Director 2001 - 2003), Angola (WatSan Advisor to the Government 2004 - 2006), as well as numerous short missions and water studies in Benin, Chad, Niger, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Ghana, Cameroon, South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Brazil and Oman.

He is a member of the Dutch NEDWORC ''Consultants for Development Foundation'' and a founding board member of Global Rainwater Harvesting Collective and has worked for Universities, Consultancy firms, The World Bank and National and International NGOs.