Our strategic approach
Innovation & Technology
Mapping and monitoring of Nigeria water sources, developing smart hardware, and creation of data management app to store and analyse data to predict the location where water projects will be most impactful and viable
Construction of Infrastructures
Development of smart water infrastructures with 100% sustainability rating
Water Sales
Generates income to fund the cost of maintaining and sustaining our water infrastructures
Governance & Management
Important local connections
Maintenance & Capacity Building
Strategy for the future
Innovation and Technology
FAIRACTION has been successful at fostering innovation and the use of new technologies to help tackle the challenges facing the Nigerian water sector. Moving forward, FAIRACTION will continue to leverage new technologies to support the areas of planning, daily operations, water supply, and infrastructure sustainability.
Our Innovation and Technology focus area consist of:
- Target 6.1 Map
- Target 6.1 Admin app
- Internet of Things (IoT)
The Target 6.1 Map
The Target 6.1 Map is a centralised and transparent management system which records and tracks sustainability and functionality of water supply facilities throughout Nigeria. The Map provides accurate and up to date data for effective decision making, project planning, budgeting, and beneficiary selection by:
- Aiding project management
- Recording and reporting sustainability and functionality of water infrastructures
- Preventing overlapping of aid among NGOs and water agencies
- Helping agencies to maximise their impact
- Centralising information about communities and their water sources
- Providing an accountable and transparent project report to investors, donors and other stakeholders
With the aid of the Target 6.1 Map, FAIRACTION is able to choose the most suitable regions as candidates to benefit from its water projects. These are regions where our water projects will be viable and most impactful, and which satisfy the following conditions:
- Where community dwellers are content to pay for their water usage
- Where our borehole/smart water kiosk will serve a minimum of 500 beneficiaries per day
- Where we will be able to generate at least 20,000 litres of clean drinking water per borehole per day
Target 6.1 Admin app
The Target 6.1 Admin App is the backend system for managing and updating the Target 6.1 Map’s data. The app enables us to constantly update the Target 6.1 map with input from operatives in the field, grassroot researchers and on-site caretakers, which allow us to have highly accurate information on every water project.
Internet of Things (IoT)
The IoT enables us to manage water infrastructures effectively and efficiently. Intelligent equipment and infrastructures monitoring helps reduce operational costs. The IoT’s digital sensors and tools deliver insights that enable utilities to predict and plan for future usage of water. Using the IoT, we are able to achieve the following:
- Monitoring the usage and sales of water from all our smart water kiosks
- Reducing water wastage by detecting leakage in pipes and storage areas
- Tracking our revenue for maintenance, operations and investment repayments
- Alerting us in real time if there is damage to the water infrastructure
- Alerting us in real time about water level in storage tank
Construction of Infrastructures - Smart Water Kiosk
The above video is a detailed view of our SWKs. Each SWK is architecturally and strategically designed to:
- Generate 20,000 litres of water daily
- Serve 1,000 beneficiaries daily
- Report volume of water pumped in real-time
- Report the volume of water sold in real-time
- Monitor and report facility functionality in real-time
- Track and compare operating and maintenance expenses against income generated from water sales in real-time
- Rate and report project sustainability in real-time
- Monitor and report routine maintenance performed by kiosk attendant daily
- All reports are two factors verified by both the smart gadgets and the kiosk attendant daily
We aim to construct 9,200 solar powered boreholes with smart water kiosk within the next four years. These boreholes collectively will generate 184,000,000 litres of water per day, which will serve more than 4.6 million beneficiaries.
Each of our water infrastructure has the following features:
- 70m (230ft) deep borehole depending on the competence of rock reservoirs and quantity/quality of water at such depths
- Roof mounted solar panel
- Solar powered pump
- Roof mounted water tank
- Kiosk outlet
- Smart water meter (IoT gadgets)
- Securing fencing
- Environmentally friendly design
- Certificate of analysis – tested and certified as safe drinking water
Governance and Management
To successfully implement the challenges of transitioning from the traditional approach of water provision to FAIRACTION’s approach, we have put together a team of dedicated professionals to lead the following areas of our strategic priority:
- Innovation & Technology
- Construction of Infrastructures
- Water Sales
- Capacity Building
Water Sales
UN Target 6.1 aims “by 2030 to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all." This statement reinforces the importance of providing water at an affordable price. It is important to note that the UN did not state that water should be provided for free.
To date, NGOs and other water agencies providing water for free have failed to provide the maintenance funds required to ensure complete functionality of their water infrastructures. In fact, more than 58% of boreholes across Nigeria are non-functional because there have been insufficient resources made available for maintenance or repairs to boreholes when they cease to be operational.
NGOs continue to provide water for free in Nigeria, on the false assumption that poor people can’t afford to pay for water. But the social, welfare and mental health costs involved when a system that requires people to walk long distances to obtain their water from dirty and unhygienic ponds when boreholes break down, is a far higher price to be paid than if communities were charged a small fee to ensure the sustainability of the boreholes.
- Sales of water through our water kiosks generate funds to maintain sustainable, safe and affordable drinking water sources, benefitting urban and rural communities where ‘on tap’ supply is not available.
- Assisted by IoT technology, we sell ground water generated from our boreholes at an affordable price of USD $1.00 per 1000 litres. The UN recommends every individual requires 15-20 litres of clean water per day. We sell a jerry can containing 25 litres of water for USD $0.025, the equivalent of less than 10 Naira to meet a person’s daily water needs.
- Our model assumes that even the poorest Nigerians can afford 10 Naira per day to purchase safe water for their daily needs. This assumption is made on the knowledge that even beggars – considered to be the poorest of the poor people in Nigeria, raise an average of 300 Naira per day – will need to spend little more than 3% of their daily income to meet their daily water needs.
- In rare situations when a household or an individual cannot afford to pay for their daily water usage, we give such household/individual an opportunity to apply for a charity water credit to fetch water for free.
- The prospects for people to be prepared to pay for their water usage are very positive. We conducted a “willingness to pay for water” survey in Ekiti, Oyo and Osun states. Six hundred low-income individuals were polled across the three states (200 from each) to assess their willingness to pay for their daily water consumptions. The survey showed that most people are willing to pay if a borehole is available within a 30 minutes’ walk of their homes.
- 92% of people are very content to pay for their water consumption, 5% are somewhat content, 2% are uncertain about paying, and 1% are not willing to pay.
Capacity Building
In support of this commitment, FAIRACTION has identified the following maintenance and capacity building focus areas to guide its efforts and build its capacity to achieve its long and short term objectives and to expand its services to all 36 states in Nigeria, and beyond, by 2030.
Maintenance focus areas
- Functionality tracking, recording and reporting
- Routine maintenance
- Borehole Repair and Rehabilitation
Capacity building focus area
- Organisational Development – Expansion and Upscaling
- Human Resources Development
- Building Partnership and Mobilising Finance
- Innovation and Technology