VIA Water kick-off in Kenia

Kenya faces complex water issues every day. To support innovative development the Dutch Ministry of foreign affaris funds ’VIA Water’ projects in seve African countries. Acacia Water and their constortium partners work on two funded projects in Kenya:  ’Improving Sustainable Groundwater Exploration with Amended Geophysics (ISGEAG)’ and ’Sponge City’ in Kajiado.

The 30 VIA Water project leaders from over seven, mostly African, countries were invited to participate in their Sharing Skills Seminar from 28 – 30 November 2016 outside Nairobi, Kenya. The Seminar had a focus on project management, present intercultural dimensions, and the leadership skills needed for success. The seminar trainings were highly interactive in order to learn from each other’s skills, talk about challenges faced and methods used to overcome these.

But most of all it was a lot of fun and inspiring to share experiences with other project owners from so many other countries as well as different backgrounds – from mobile water metering to reuse of fecal sludge! To Acacia Water, it once again showed that the challenges globally faced are quiet similar, which requires thinking from the water system as basis is crucial.

The seminar was closed by one minute elevator pitches by all 30 project leaders to an audience of high level representatives of both Dutch and Kenyan organizations active in the WASH sector. From several organization representatives there was a lot of interest in Acacia’s VIA Water projects, especially in the geophysics project. They indicated that research on improved groundwater exploration methods and interpretation is of high importance to increase the success rate of borehole drilling. An apparent need for which Acacia Water is your ideal research and consultant partner!

More information on the ISGEAG project: www.viawater.nl (https://www.viawater.nl/projects/improving-application-of-geophysical-groundwater-exploration-in-kenya)