WATER is life and this truth is deeply understood by the citizens, particularly those living in rural areas.
The lack of adequate clean water has caused immense hardship, illness and even death. It is out of her love for the people of Tanzania that President Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan has made solving this issue one of her top priorities.
She has declared her goal that every village will have access to piped water by the end of 2025.
To achieve this ambitious goal, she launched the national campaign ‘Kumtua Mama Ndoo Kichwani’, meaning ‘relieving woman a burden of carrying bucket of water on the head,’ aimed specifically at improving access to clean and safe water services in both urban and rural areas.
The Ministry of Water is committed to improving access to safe drinking water and sanitation services for all while managing water resources to ensure national food security and sustainable industrial-based economic development.
“We have made significant progress in providing millions of citizens with access to clean and safe water; however, there are still areas in need and the work continues,” noted President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who recently instructed Water Minister Jumaa Aweso to address the water challenge in the Komungu area of Kwamsisi Village.
This statement underscores the government’s dedication to resolving the water crisis, but it also highlights that many regions remain underserved and that more effort is required to achieve this national goal.
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Mr Hamisi Mlaponi, a Tanzanian water project implementer, has researched sustainable water solutions and identified the Solar/ Thermal Distillation/Desalination System, developed by Sun Fresh Water, LLC, in partnership with the City College of New York and the State University of New York at Albany.
This technology has been presented to the Ministry of Water and their Technical Committee has concluded that: “The technology aligns with the water sector development frameworks and global initiatives to address climate change impacts.” A key advantage of this technology is its simplicity, as it mimics Nature’s method of freshwater production – distillation.
In nature, the sun heats the ocean’s surface, causing freshwater to evaporate, condense into clouds and fall back to earth as precipitation.
The Sun Fresh Water system replicates this process using enclosed containers. It only requires two essential components: A source of contaminated water (whether salt, brackish, or otherwise polluted) and sunlight, both of which are abundant in Tanzania.
Many Tanzanian villages rely on boreholes as their primary water source, but this water is often contaminated with harmful substances such as fluoride. Distillation significantly reduces or eliminates these contaminants, supporting the National Water Policy of 2002, which aims to provide clean and safe water to rural residents.
Furthermore, Sun Fresh Water, LLC proposes aligning with the Ministry of Water’s mission to ensure sustainable industrial-based economic development by establishing Tanzania as a regional hub for sustainable potable water solutions across East Africa.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the importance of clean water and sanitation for all under SDG 6. Improved drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are seen as fundamental to advancing other goals, such as health, education and poverty reduction.
Tanzania has committed to achieving SDG targets 6.1 and 6.2 as part of its Third National Five-Year Development Plan by 2030. Additionally, the Tanzanian development plan targets universal access to safe water by 2025.
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“This is the only real solution I see,” said Mr Hamisi Mlaponi.
He continued, “Bringing this innovation to the villages of Tanzania could be the greatest improvement ever made to the lives of our people.
Reliable access to clean water will not only improve health and well-being but also reduce the daily burden placed on women who are responsible for fetching water.
This will allow them to focus on their families and other productive activities. It will also improve sanitation, hygiene and agricultural productivity.
With this system, President Samia’s vision of providing clean water to every citizen can be achieved, yielding immense benefits.”
Through various NGOs, Mr Mlaponi plays a vital role in promoting access to clean water by fundraising, securing donor support, implementing projects, raising awareness and advocating for policy changes.
Since 2016, he has worked in regions where government infrastructure and services are either lacking or insufficient, particularly in Tanga and Morogoro.
One of the key strategies employed by Mr Mlaponi’s NGOs involves implementing water projects, including the construction of wells and boreholes in rural communities and the installation of water purification systems in urban areas.
He is also actively involved in raising awareness about the importance of clean water and addressing water scarcity issues.
Despite the proven benefits of this technology, authorisation to initiate the system has not yet been granted. When asked about his confidence in the system’s effectiveness, Joseph D’Alba, President of Sun Fresh Water, LLC, remarked: “The greatest inventions in history have often been the simplest and most obvious. For millennia, humanity gazed at the moon before inventing the wheel.
Our system is not original—distillation was invented by nature when the oceans were formed. We have simply adapted nature’s system to solve one of today’s most pressing global challenges: Securing a sustainable source of potable water.”
He added, “It would be an honour to work with the United Republic of Tanzania to lead the world towards a safe, healthy and water-secure future, where women and children are freed from the burden of fetching water daily and where no one suffers from drinking contaminated water or dies from thirst.”
The Ministry of Water’s vision is to create a water-secure country, where citizens have sustainable access to sufficient, clean water for human, economic and environmental needs.
The Sun Fresh Water system offers a clear and feasible path towards turning this vision into reality.
