by Sarah McMath, MOSL CEO

At the end of February, I was luckily enough to visit The Gambia.

The main purpose of my trip was as a Trustee of the Don McMath Foundation (DMF) – set up by my aunt in 2003, in memory of my uncle, who passed away of a brain tumour at the early age of 46.

My uncle was a dedicated maths teacher. The DMF set up a school in The Gambia to provide a free education for children living in extreme poverty. What started as a classroom for nursery school children, has become a school of over 300 students aged 6-16. I am immensely proud of the school and what my aunt has achieved but visiting for the 20-year anniversary celebrations also gave me a great opportunity to truly appreciate the dedication and hard work of all the teachers and students. 

To find out more about the Don McMath Foundation, please visit the website.

The trip, however, had a dual purpose. I am also a senior advisor for a company called eWATERservices. eWATER is a private water operator operating across Sub-Saharan Africa. They install and maintain water systems for local communities, including nine villages in the Gambia. What’s more, they use smart technology to provide access to water and the Internet of Things to track every litre dispensed. 

I knew I had to take up the opportunity to learn more and see these Smart Taps operating firsthand. I was joined by a member of my leadership team, Lyvia Nabarro, as we headed to the town of Wellingara Ba with our guide and eWATER employee, Alieu Colley.

Wellingara Ba is a village of approximately 4,000 residents. eWATER has, to-date, installed and manages 23 Smart Taps in the village.

We were met by a number of village leaders who were representatives of the village from across its districts. We also were introduced to members of the different tribes in The Gambia (the two represented were Fula and Mandinka). The main village leader spoke to us about the benefits of having Smart Taps. Unlike other boreholes provided by charity organisations, the eWATER taps are fully sealed, meaning the water is cleaner, and tastes better. The taps are also regularly maintained by the eWATER Smart Maintenance Teams as eWATER can identify any issues through its real-time dashboards, showing when and where water is being used every minute of the day. You can see the live dashboard here.

So here is the thing that makes eWATERservices stand out to me. It’s not about handouts, it’s not about digging wells, it’s about sustainable water management. It’s about utilising technology and providing simple infrastructure to provide more people with safe, clean drinking water, now and in the future.

In many ways, this technology feels so much further ahead than where we are in the UK. Residents in eWATER villages register for an eWATER Tag, top up water credits through an app, online payments or by cash to a local vendor. They put the Tag against the Smart Tap and the water flows. When they take the Tag away, the water stops. They pay for exactly what they need, and that consumption is tracked through the live dashboards. The taps communicate with cloud-based payments software providing real time management of payments and water usage. The cost works out at about 10 dalais (15p) a gallon, so is affordable and safe.

But here’s the bit we really need to take lessons from. eWATER is aligned to delivering against the UN Global Goals (as MOSL is now doing through its first Sustainability Plan). Unlike in England, where we are urgently trying to reduce our per capita consumption down to 110 litres in the next 15 years to meet our growing water scarcity challenges, The Gambia needs to increase its PCC to meet global goal (number 5) for Good Health and Wellbeing. eWATER is supporting this by providing accessible and reliable water to “increase water consumption to reach the WHO aspiration of 20 litres per person per day”. To put this into perspective, the average person in the UK uses seven times more water, every day, than the amount of water The Gambia and other African countries aspire to provide for their citizens. There is a disconnect here and we really do need to place more value on the water we use as a country. 

In visiting just one of the nine villages that eWATER works with I have been impressed by the innovative services they provide, as well as their commitment to providing a sustainable water solution for rural communities that work for them. 

I came back from my trip buzzing with ideas on how we can learn lessons from companies like eWATER and others, who are investing in smarter technology to provide better data on water consumption and working with local communities to embed sustainable and long-term solutions.

As we face real and imminent water shortages in England, there are opportunities to learn from this kind of innovation – in particular the importance of data and the value we place on the water we use.