CO-Increased Access to Safe Drinking Wat Climate change and natural disasters increasingly affect people’s well-being and development prospects. Fragile contexts such as Somalia have recently faced cyclical climate-induced shocks from drought to flooding and locust infestations. Because of Somalia’s economic reliance on natural resources such as livestock and man-made degradation of natural resources such as charcoal production and overgrazing, climate change could make the country more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity.
The current drought in Somalia has further increased the WASH needs in the targeted communities and led to further displacement. In early 2022, nearly 3.2 million people required WASH assistance, but now over 5.2 million require urgent water, sanitation and hygiene intervention. According to UNICEF, Only 52 per cent of the population in Somalia has access to a basic water supply. Without access to clean water, latrines and good hygiene practices, the risk of contracting easily preventable diseases, such as diarrhoea, acute watery diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery and respiratory infections, is high.
In addition, the groundwater in many parts of Somalia has high salinity and is unfit for human consumption. Many settlements have shallow wells, however, they are brackish and only fit for animals and general domestic use (i.e. not drinking or cooking). The FAO/SWALIM survey showed that in Somaliland and Puntland regions, only 30% of groundwater samples across all aquifers were below the safe limit and fit for human consumption..
Sool and Sanaag regions are among the regions with very brackish water sources. Communities use mainly of livestock and non consumptive domestic water? but use The preferred water source for drinking and cooking is rainwater harvesting but, with increasingly erratic rainfall on average, this is only able to last for 2-3 months. Where rainfall performance is very poor, harvested rainwater last only for a few weeks  Furthermore, rainwater is stored in underground tanks and, because the majority of water is ground run-off (not from roofs), it is prone to contamination.  Consequently “freshwater” needs to be tankered from  neighboring areas (typically 10-50 kms away) where the geology is more favourable andgroundwater is fresh.    This is very expensive, uneconomical and environmentally polluting.  It is also only a temporary solution.Since 2018, in order to address this situation and seek a cost effective, durable and climate friendly solution, Oxfam installed four solar-powered reverse osmosis desalination treatment systems in four villages in Sool and Sanaag regions. The location of this four villages were selected based on several criteria i) salinity of their source, ii) population size, iii) accessibility of the location for trail and support, iv) willingness of the community to use and pay for the services. Considering the outcome of the selection exercise Oog, Garadag, Ceeldhab and Ceelmidgan were selected.    The innovations have proved that (i) the desalination units workin the Somaliland context and provide clean potable water, and (ii) Solar-powered desalination units can be used in remote locations. However, it also noted that for the desal units to function sustainably, they need a  more professional management structure needbetter management option than an existing conventional community-based committees which are the norm in in rural Somalia. Since theinstallation of the units, we identified few issues that need to be addressed in order to increase functionality.
- The power challenge by providing a standby generator which can be used during low radiation hours
- Increasing the discharge of the clean water considering the demand of the community. Upgrade the units from 1500lit/hour to 4000lit/hour.
- Change the management model from community managed to private public partnership or to utility option.
Thus, in this grant, we will increase the discharge of two desalination units, replace or upgrade critical parts including membranes, housing and piping. In addition, we will pilot public private partnership with risk-sharing and accountability included in the agreement. With these changes, we expect the units will provide water and sustain functionality with future maintenance being taken by the managing body (private-public company  ). The operation and management of other two desalination unit (Ceeldhab and Ceelmidgan of Sool and Sanaag regions respectively) will remain within the same management structure (community managed option). Learning from this bigger desalination units and availability of additional fundingwill be utilize to upgrade them with bigger capacity. This grant is only enough for the Oog and Garadag desalination units.