Hydraulic ram pumps and Sling Pumps

WEDC - Conference Paper20th WEDC Conference: Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1994Are handpumps really affordable?Michael Wood, CARE, EthiopiaDURING THE INTERNATIONAL Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade of the 1980s manythousands of handpumps were installed in developing countries as part of the United Nations-led drive toprovide safe drinking water and adequate sanitation for all by 1990.Since then, thousands more handpumps of many different types have been put in by donors andgovernments.Handpumps have been given a high profile in the quest to provide potable water to the world'sburgeoning rural population by leading players in development like the World Bank, UNICEF and aplethora of international non-government organizations. Handpumps were vigorously promoted as beingthe best option by which communities could enjoy a safe and reliable water supply, based on thefollowing set of assumptions:That handpumps were:●●●●●●●●Low costAffordableEasy to maintainAn appropriate technologyReadily availableEasy to installUser friendlyEfficientIt has been generally accepted that handpumps render a shallow well or borehole safe against surfacecontamination based on the belief that the water will be contaminated to an unacceptable degree (havingan E-Coli count of more than 10) if alternative extraction methods are used e.g. rope and bucket.This paper will point out that handpumps have not lived up to earlier expectations, particularly in the areahttp://info.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/wedc/papers/wood.html (1 of 7) [1/13/2005 12:47:19 PM]