Insuring against Rural Water Risk in Africa

30多年来，在非洲农村供水方面，社区管理手泵一直是公认的思维模式。这种方法支撑着每年数亿美元的投资，用于修理损坏的手泵并安装新的手泵。由于五分之四没有安全可靠饮用水的人生活在农村地区，这一需求是巨大的，特别是因为农村人口往往更贫穷，更容易受到日益增加的气候变化的影响。然而，尽管在农村手工泵上投入了数十亿美元，但在非洲农村，三分之一的手工泵不起作用。这是一项巨大的浪费投资，与高昂但可避免的健康、福利和生计成本有关。在财政紧缩时期，政府正正确地努力思考更可持续的解决方案，为通常为手动泵买单的纳税人提供更大的物有所值。令人鼓舞的是，手泵故障的风险具有可保险风险的所有特征。牛津大学研究人员最近取得的一项技术突破使一种保险模式现在变得可行。研究人员设计并成功推出了一款智能手动泵，它可以自动将使用频率发送给准备响应的维护团队。这为定期了解手动泵的工作情况提供了良好可靠的数据，并在故障时提供了关键数据，这样训练有素的机械师就可以迅速出去修理泵。像任何保险模式一样，更多的手动泵的保费较低，因为它们将风险分散在所有用户身上。非洲农村地区已经习惯了健康和牲畜保险产品，因此这将是一种自然的延伸。目前尚不清楚的是，用户愿意支付多少费用，以及他们想要什么级别的维护服务。通常有一百多人使用手泵来饮水和给牲畜浇水。了解人们的支付偏好对于设计社会可接受的保险产品至关重要。同样重要的是要知道在非洲有哪些保险产品，以及它们的表现如何，以便考虑现实的替代方案。将消费者需求与保险供应联系起来，将为在下一阶段的研究中测试这种新的手动泵保险产品提供可靠的基础。与包括联合国儿童基金会（UNICEF）和代表移动电话公司和运营商的全球机构（GSMA）在内的项目合作伙伴一起进行的研究令人兴奋和感兴趣。肯尼亚政府也非常支持水务管理委员会作为合作伙伴的工作，将其作为向所有肯尼亚公民提供安全用水的任务的一部分。由于一半以上的肯尼亚农村人口缺乏安全可靠的水，因此确实需要解决手动泵的性能问题。肯尼亚并不是独一无二的。非洲农村地区也面临着类似的问题。如果这个项目取得成功，它将帮助2.76亿非洲农村人口获得安全可靠的水，使他们的生活和未来更加健康和富裕。这对每个人来说都是好消息。

Community management of handpumps has been the accepted mode of thinking for rural water supply over three decades in Africa. The approach underpins the hundreds of millions of US dollars invested each year to fix broken handpumps and install new ones. With four out of five people without safe and reliable water living in rural areas the need is great, particularly as rural people tend to be poorer and be more vulnerable to increasing climate variability. However, despite billions invested in rural handpumps one in three handpumps do not work in rural Africa. This represents a huge wasted investment and is associated with high but avoidable health, welfare and livelihood costs. In times of austerity governments are rightly thinking harder on more sustainable solutions that provide greater value for money for taxpayers who generally foot the handpump bill. Encouragingly, the risk of handpump breakdown bears all the hallmarks of an insurable risk. A recent technological break-through by researchers at Oxford University makes an insurance model now feasible. The researchers designed and successfully launched a smart handpump that automatically texts how often it is being used to a maintenance team ready to respond. This provides good and reliable data on a regular basis to know how handpumps are working and critically when they fail so a trained mechanic can quickly get out to repair the pump. Like any insurance model premiums are lower with more handpumps as they spread the risk across all users. Rural Africans are already used to health and livestock insurance products so this would be a natural extension. What is not clear is how much users would pay and what level of maintenance service they would want. Handpumps are used by often over a hundred people for drinking water and for watering livestock. Understanding people's payment preferences is critical to designing a socially-acceptable insurance product. Equally it is important to know what insurance products are available in Africa and how they are performing to consider realistic alternatives. Linking consumer demand with insurance supply will then provide a credible basis to test such a new handpump insurance product in the next phase of the research. There is a lot of excitement and interest in the research with the project partners including the United Nations Children Foundation (UNICEF) and the global body representing mobile phone companies and operators (GSMA). The Kenyan government is also very supportive with the Water Services Regulatory Board a partner in the work as part of their mandate to deliver safe water to all Kenyan citizens. With over half of rural Kenyans lacking safe and reliable water there is a real need to address handpump performance. Kenya is not unique though. Across rural Africa similar problems are faced. If this project is successful it could help the 276 million rural Africans access safe and reliable water to make their lives and futures healthy and wealthier. That would be good news for everyone.