Water & Wastewater Asia May/Jun 2021

5 MINS WITH WATER & WASTEWATER ASIA | MAY/JUNE 2021
The second
cycle ceremony
group photo with
His Highness
Sheikh Ahmed bin
Mohammed Al
Maktoum and His
Excellency Saeed Al
Tayer
of vulnerable families around the world
do not drink, cook, or bathe with clean
water — a basic natural resource that
we too often take for granted. Access
to clean and safe water is critical for
breaking the cycle of poverty.
Through our humanitarian aid
programme under the UAE Water Aid
Foundation, our efforts continue to
address this global crisis. We have
provided more than 13 million people
in 36 countries with access to clean
water with the support of our partners
to date, and we are keen on reaching
out and serving humanity around the
world by helping communities that
suffer from a lack of access to clean
and safe water.
Do you think global goals are
realistic in ensuring everyone
is provided with safe and clean
drinking water? And why?
The UN 2030 Agenda offers the
opportunity to break new grounds in
the context of social, economic, and
environmental aspects. And certainly,
clean and accessible water for all
is an essential part of the world we
want to live in. SDG 6 seeks to ensure
safe drinking water and sanitation
for all, focusing on the sustainable
management of water resources,
wastewater, and ecosystems, and
acknowledging the importance of
an enabling environment. Suqia’s
commitment to reach out and aid
underprivileged communities that
suffer from access to clean water
remains strong, and SDG 6 has
become a valuable guide on how best
to achieve that.
What is the role of innovative and
sustainable technologies that use
renewable energy to produce clean
potable water?
Innovative and sustainable
technologies that operate using
renewable energy may offer affordable
solutions and have a strong potential
to address many of the challenges
presented by the global water crisis.
Through the award, we witnessed
how innovative and sustainable
technologies can help address water
scarcity. Many of the winners in the
previous cycles of the award have
demonstrated simple and innovative
solutions that either produce,
purify and distribute clean water to
communities in need.
A great example is the unique solution
developed by German Jan Rädel,
who took home the ‘Innovative
Individual Award.’ Determined to
make a difference in the world from a
young age, Jan journeyed to Tanzania
to construct solar-powered water
plants that provide clean water to
nearby schools. The plants collect
rainwater in cisterns. Gravity-driven
ultrafiltration used for water purification
is achieved by solar energy to pump
rainwater up to a 5m to 6m tower to
obtain enough pressure. This reduces
the need for a backwash tank and
pumps by applying a side-by-side
operation of two gravity-driven filtration
membranes. The plants have a storage
tank capacity between 100,000L to
150,000L to guarantee drinking water
supply during dry seasons.
Another example from the
second cycle are the solar kiosks
implemented by a non-profit
organisation Project Maji from Ghana,
which also caught the attention of
the judges. Project Maji won third
place in the ‘Innovative and Research
Development Award’ category during
the second cycle of the Award. The
solar kiosks consist of solar-driven
submersible pumps that eliminate the
need for batteries, thereby limiting
replacement costs and keeping
maintenance requirements low. The
kiosks can be scaled to produce
between 5,000L -10,000L/day of
water. To date, more than 50 of these
kiosks have been set up in Ghana,
while 14 have been set up in Kenya —
each resulting in access to more than
5,000L of water per day. More than
67,000 people from both countries
have had their lives positively
transformed from Project Maji’s solarpowered
water kiosks.
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