Page 28 - WATER SECTOR MAGAZINE VOLUME 3

CELEBRATING FAILURE:REMEMBERING THE PLAY-PUMP

By MUTHI NHLEMA, in class from their very first step inthe Pump is it! We don’t lie–The Play-Pump
TEAM LEADER AT BASEFLOW corridors of education–what would you improves our water supply!”
expect? What you then have, as a result,
As Malawi celebrates 53 years of are a people who are more certain of how Orders were made! Shipments came in!
independence and, as is custom, questions to respond or react to success, but do not Money changed hands! And Play-Pumps
the true meaning of independence and have the emotional or social intelligence were drilled!
the value of sovereignty; the water sector, to react constructively to failure. Failure
likewise, must reflect on its part in this is viewed as a stigma rather than an Excitement! Anticipation! Revelry even!
national narrative, particularly, whether opportunity to learn, improve and grow. And now------Silence!Cold, dead and
we have truly created resilient and self- deafening silence!
reliant communities, often argued to be In the water sector, we have had many
the foundation of an independent society. failures–failures we don’t talk about and What happened to all those orders and
Part of this sector-wide reflection requires we simply sweep them under the carpet shipments of pump parts that were meant
looking back at the past, including at our hoping they get buried under a heap of to change the lives of thousands of school-
collective failures, to inform the next steps dust over the passage of time. Some of going children across sub-Saharan Africa?
toward a sustainable future. This article is these failures have actually made the What happened to the vision, the drive,
about one of our failures, one we all prefer water situation worse, instead of better. and the enthusiasm? Where are all the
to forget. And if there is one monumental failure cheerleading donors and the over-praising
among them that has quietly gone and media?
Success! Success is something we all want disappeared from conversations and
to be associated with. We are all eager to plummeted into the lexicon of forgotten What happened to the Play-Pump? Well–
celebrate our successes by shouting it from white elephants then it is the once lauded this is what happened.
every roof top so that people know of it– and loved Play-Pump.
even for a little while–as we enjoy our 15 The organization promoting the Play-
minutes in the spotlight of life. For those of you who don’t know a Play- Pump, Play-Pump International, went
Pump–it is simply a water pump that bust and closed shop. In Malawi, the
NGOs are no different–NGOs are just as operates by using the energy of children pump parts that were shipped into the
quick and eager at celebrating success. at play.The children play on a merry-go- country and delivered to districts councils
They would get busy writing lengthy round and the spinning motion pumps like that in Chikwawa, where I used to
documents capturing lessons that people underground water into a 2,500-liter work, are simply gathering dust with no-
never read or developing huge newspaper tank raised seven meters above ground. one having a single solitary idea what to
spreads that display events that the The water in the tank is easily dispensed do with them.
readers could hardly be bothered to care through a tap.
about. But you would rarely, if ever, find Most of the Play-Pumps that brought
an NGO displaying their failures. You will Cool idea right! Everyone thought so too! moments of mirth for several children,
never see a newspaper spread with the giving them respite from their “less than
heading “Why We Failed” or a document Media across the world hailed this as a a dollar a day” life, have joined the other
citing failures rather than failure’s distant great innovation–something that would broken down, non-functional water
cousin-challenges. help turn the tide as regards school and supply systems that have riddled the
even community water supply. Donors Malawian country side. Forgotten by the
Of course, this is purely due to embraced it and imposed it on developing NGOs and government that put them
conditioning. In Malawi,displaying failure nations and cash-strapped NGOs, as there.
is frowned upon in favor of perpetual possibly that much needed “magic
and never-ending success, favor and bullet”. The Play-Pump had all the right And the once promising experiment in
prosperity. Actually when an entire people (powerful) cheer leaders doing backflips water supply system development–an
are taught to always be Number One and somersaults shouting:“The Play- innovation of unparalleled potential – has
become banned in districts like Chikwawa
and across Malawi.
Another white elephant was born! Again
one must ask - What happened? Were we
duped? Were we somehow hoodwinked
and didn’t know it? Or was it something
else?

Rather than engaging in an in-depth
conversation around these and other
soul searching questions–we have done
the usual–sweep the failure under the
carpet and hope no-one ever asks about it,
especially forex-laden donors.
Well-I am asking and I have an answer.
I think we were neither duped nor
hoodwinked. There are several reasons
why the Play-Pump failed and they mostly
categorized into three:
• Technically, the Play-Pump had
an inherently complex design with pump
parts that were either not readily available
on the local market or too expensive. In
this age of community based management,
The now out of use and abandoned Play-Pumps
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