PlayPumps Water Promise Drying Up in Africa
Tue, June 29, 2010 
Updated June 29, 2010. We were momentarily thrilled to update our original Jan. 29, 2009 story on PlayPumps, again the subject of PBS Frontline tonight.
Unfortunately, the Frontline investigation Southern Africa: Troubled Water is a focus on all that has gone with this fabulous concept of delivering water in South Africa. A huge multi-media fundraising effect, PlayPumps ran before it could walk. Like many businesses that grow too fast, PlayPump ran into technical and quality problems.
Featured at the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative, PlayPump received $10 million in US funding and a strong endorsement from JZ, once the Case Foundation got involved. (Steve Case, AOL)
“I feel that the intention was always positive and always well meant,” says Kristina Gubic, the former communications manager of PlayPumps International South Africa, “but that we could have been less focused on achieving quantity and more focused on getting it right from the outset, rather than the pressure to roll out as many pumps as you can.” via PBS Frontline
Reporter Amy Costello reports that PlayPump founder Trevor Field is interviewed in the program, about its problems. In May 2009, the board of PlayPumps International-US brought in a new CEO.
In advance of the show, we’re reading a letter from Jean Case, dated May 4, 2010 in which she writes about the PlayPump failures, in the light of Bill Gates admitting that their $700 million investment in eradicating polio had fallen short.
We had to re-think our involvement in the PlayPumps initiative, which brings clean drinking water to rural African villages. When we were first introduced to the technology, we believed both the technology and the business model for its deployment had enormous potential and jumped in with both feet to help create PlayPumps International-U.S. as a US-based fundraising and marketing organization to support the initiative. As we’ve noted in the past, we’re proud of the successes the initiative has had - PlayPumps are now bringing play opportunities and improved access to safe water in hundreds of communities and schools in Africa. In addition, these efforts have helped spark a number of new play-related technologies now being offered by various organizations and the initiative has highlighted the important role that social entrepreneurship can play in global development. However, we also acknowledge that the organization has fallen short of the aggressive goals that were developed at the outset, and all involved have learned many lessons. via Case Foundation.org
At the same time, the Case Foundation announced an investment by the Case Foundation in Water For People to help the organization accelerate and expand its efforts in Africa.
“For nearly 20 years, Water For People has pioneered innovative approaches to safe water supply, empowering communities and utilizing local entrepreneurs for sustainable operations and maintenance, and we truly believe that their approach represents a step forward for the PlayPumps technology“ wrote Jean Case
The organization now supports Water for People, which offers PlayPumps as part of a larger portfolio of water-delivery solutions for African companies. Below is our original short post and video.
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The PlayPump is a playground that uses the boundless energy of children to bring water to remote locations in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia.
This marvelous invention attacks the problems associated with getting clean drinking water for one billion of the world’s inhabitants, with imagination, innovation, and verve.
Stories abound that before the PlayPump, people would pay a taxi driver to take them to a far-off well. If the taxi drivers were too busy, then villagers went without water.
Getting water is traditionally a female task, one that young girls, as well as their mothers, assume. It’s almost inconceivable to Americans to imagine a life where African girls ware held back from school, until the challenge of the water supply was met.
The PlayPump is an incredible time and productivity saver, in the shape of a windmill on its side. It’s capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40 meters, and it is effective up to a depth of 100 meters.
PlayPumps International
Reader Comments (3)
Hi Anne i am Trevor Field the founder of the PlayPump system here in Johannesburg I would love to chat to you about ideas I have please e-mail me and thanks for the plug!
Trevor
trevorf@roundabout.co.za
I was amazed to read on the BBC website today that six months after the demise of playpumps the organization One Difference is selling it’s brand of bottled water ‘One Water’ to support playpump projects across Africa. According to their FAQs (http://www.onedifference.org/faq) they have are building playpumps at a rate of one playpump every 3 days and have installed a total of 536. Frankly this stinks of fraud.
Jane Franklin
http://www.WaterSanitationHygiene.org
Hi Jane
I think you've picked up on a few mixed messages which are, unfortunately, floating around on the web, some old, some inaccurate, and to say that "The Playpumps organization has been shown to be a fraud following....." couldn't be further from the truth. In fact PlayPumps International was created by The Case Foundation - Steve Case being the (billionaire) founder of AOL and he ad his wife, Jean, being some of America's foremost philanthropists. There are also some mis-informed reports which have been re-tracted by the NGO's you mentioned after it was discovered that the contractors they'd been using for installation were actually not, how shall we say, being completely honest in their analysis.
As a charitable foundation we have a board of trustees who's job it is to separate fact from fiction, and spin from the realities of life. If we, and me personally, had any issues (and we do a lot of background checks - some of them in a 'mystery shopper' type format) we'd stop what we were doing.
I'd be happy to chat more if that would help - or do drop me an email at duncan.goose@global-ethics.com
All the best
Duncan