Rural communities in Vanuatu face a range of challenges with the delivery of safe drinking water including intermittent supply caused by drought or damaged infrastructure, contaminated water and competing uses for drinking water causing conflict in communities. Outer island communities depending on rainwater, hand-pumps and in some cases expensive diesel water pumping are adversely affected by drought, particularly when there is no rain for up to several weeks. The water stored in rainwater harvesting tanks then needs to be rationed. A number of Vanuatu’s Islands have declared water ‘emergencies’ in recent years. There are limited government resources to support communities to address and manage these water issues and increase their resilience when facing climate change negative impacts. The Department of Energy and the Department of Water strongly believe that providing a basic community water supply and distribution system within rural communities will have a significant impact in terms of creating improved access to water and associated socio-economic benefits. This will be achieved by deployment of solar PV water pumping and community distribution systems for rural communities on the outer islands/rural areas at potential sites identified by the Department of Water. 

The project objective is increased resilience in rural Ni-Vanuatu communities to cope with future climate change consequences such as severe droughts/tropical cyclones. 

The project aims to i.) Address the lack of adaptive capacity and vulnerability of the rural water sector to adverse climate effects (climate change adaptation and GHG emission reductions) and ii.) Remove barriers for the wide-scale utilization of solar power to meet the water needs of households, communities, and micro-businesses initially in few target sites and eventually in the whole country. 

24 cyclone-resistant solar powered water pumping systems including storage must be designed, successfully installed and commissioned at the identified locations where communities do not have sufficient, reliable and affordable access to water. In addition, targeted communities will be trained in the Operation and Management of such systems as far as government officials. National Solar Powered Water Systems guidelines will be also produced. 

Finally, a Financial Sustainability Study will be carried out in order to provide mechanisms to ensure financial sustainability and development of a replication mechanism. 

Impact: Increased resilience in rural Ni-Vanuatu communities to cope with future climate change consequences such as severe droughts/tropical cyclones. 

Outcome: N/A – to be completed in 2020 

Project Outputs completed in 2019: All outputs to be completed in 2020

i. Green Growth Policies:N/A

ii. Green Investments:N/A

iii. Capacity Building and Knowledge Products: N/A 

Project Manager: Eva Diaz Ugena 

Katerina Syngellakis, Paul Kaun, Christopher Simelum, Rosi Banuve, Karthik Gopavarapu