Abstract

It is estimated that broken water pumps impact 62 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last 20 years, broken hand pumps have represented between $1.2 and $1.5 billion of lost investment in this region, with 30-40% of rural water systems failing prematurely.
Whilst the contributory factors are complex and multifaceted; the authors consider that improved post-construction monitoring strategies for remote water projects, which rely on SMART pumps to remotely monitor operational performance in place of physical site visits, may potentially address some of these problems and help reduce the heavy time and resource demands on stakeholders associated with traditional monitoring strategies. As such, SMART pumps could play a significant role in improving project monitoring and might subsequently help deliver universal access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030, which constitutes one of the key targets of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, and is embedded in some national constitutions.