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A water pump built into a children’s merry-go-round. The idea was simple: Harness the energy of children at play to draw well water up from the ground. It was meant to provide clean water for thousands of African villages. Philanthropists loved the PlayPump project. Until it fell apart. Amy Costello’s gives us an update on today’s show.
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DAVID BARON: I’m David Baron and this is The World. Here’s an idea to help impoverished people in Africa. Build a water pump into a children’s merry go round. The more the kids move the merry go round in circles, the more clean drinking water fills a tank. Then, install thousands of these pumps in villages across Africa. Well that was the idea behind the Playpump. Amy Costello reported on the Playpump project for our program five years ago. Here’s an excerpt from her story filed from a village in Mozambique.
AMY COSTELLO: Kids run in a circle and push a merry go round faster and faster. Those who are seated on the ride get dizzy from the speed; laughing and giddy from the force of gravity. These kids are having so much fun they don’t seem to realize they’re working. Then again, that’s the idea behind the Playpump, a merry go round with a mission.
BARON: That was reporter Amy Costello reporting on the Playpump in 2005. It seemed like a great project, but things didn’t go as planned. Amy Costello went back to Mozambique where the Playpump was rolled out to do a follow up report for the PBS television program “Front Line World”. Amy Costello joins us from New York. Now Amy, after you did that original story for our program and also for Front Line World, the idea really took off. It was embraced by the wealthy and the famous. Tell us what happened.
COSTELLO: Well yeah, it was an outcome I could have never expected back in 2005 when I did that story for your program, The World, and later that year for the PBS television program, Front Line World. In 2006, just a year later I was invited to attend the Clinton Global Initiative Conference.
BARON: So that’s part of President Clinton’s Foundation?
COSTELLO: That’s correct, his annual meeting that he holds in New York every year with world leaders, and especially some of the biggest donors around the world trying to commit to resolving some of the world’s great crises. That year, in 2006 they took on the water crisis and announced a 16.4 million dollar pledge to Playpump to roll out the technology in several African nations.
BARON: Wow. So this really was a big push to get these installed?
COSTELLO: Absolutely. By 2010 they wanted to up the amount that they were going to put into Playpumps to 60 million dollars, installing 4,000 pumps and potentially bringing drinking water to millions of people in Africa.
BARON: Sounds terrific. So you went back to Mozambique and what did you find?
COSTELLO: I found pumps that were broken and/or were not working at the sites that they had been selected to work at. So I visited a rural community in Mozambique whose Playpump had been broken for six months. So they were without a drinking supply. They had to walk 40 minutes to the next village in order to get their water now, which was putting additional pressure on that community. They resented the 150 families that they were now having to share their water source with.
BARON: So actually in a case like this, the installation of the Playpump displaced their former source of water?
COSTELLO: Exactly. I think one of the lessons learned in this roll out is that the Playpump should be installed in places where there isn’t water already. In many instances in Mozambique for example, Playpumps were put over existing water sources, usually the traditional hand pump that had been there.
BARON: Well now you spoke to the man behind the Playpump project, he’s a South African named Trevor Field and here’s what he had to say about the broken pumps.
TREVOR FIELD: We might not have been 100% fixing all of the pumps all of the time. But the majority of the pumps are working, way more than the majority are working, 80% to 90% are working 100%. And the rest of them will get attended to.
BARON: Now do you buy those numbers? Are most of the Playpumps, the vast majority, still functioning?
COSTELLO: I kind of have to take his word on that. I did raise some concerns with him that whether he has a good handle on maintenance or not. Having said that, and having worked as a reporter in Africa for several years and lived there for six years, I can appreciate how difficult it is to maintain a technology in rural places. And 1,500 of them no less. So I think he’s got a huge challenge and he does have some implementing partners that he’s working with who say they are happy with his maintenance and the way their pumps are operating. But it’s difficult to know when he says 80% or 90% of them are working if they are. And as you know I go in my story and I visit one school where there isn’t water being stored in the tank and he didn’t seem to be aware of that.
BARON: So do you still think that the Playpump is a good idea? Was this a good idea that perhaps was rolled out too fast and without enough forethought? Or is there some fundamental problem with the technology, the concept?
COSTELLO: I don’t think there’s a problem with the concept itself. I think that the largest lesson learned here is that it’s an appropriate technology in a very specific situation, which is at large schools where the children are big enough to play on the pump and that they’re using it enough during the day to pump sufficient water for the needs of the school. It is not appropriate technology for very small children, not is it an appropriate technology for very small schools. Most people agree now too, it should not be the primary source of water for anyone. It’s a great secondary source of water for people.
BARON: Well reporter Amy Costello’s investigation into what happened to the Playpump project airs tonight on the PBS show Front Line World. Thank you Amy.
COSTELLO: You’re welcome David.
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