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About Maai Makwa

Maai Makwa (indigenous Kikuyu language for My Water) is a Kenyan open-source, public domain water quality and quantity monitoring project integrated with practical civic education to empower urban, peri-urban and rural communities to participate in water conservation and sustainable water resource exploitation.

Maai Makwa aims to facilitate and enhance public participation in water conservation and legislation on climate action. It seeks to bridge access to information between water service providers, water regulatory bodies, public policy makers and communities by creating a public platform for listing all available water access points across the country. The project will also create the country’s first real-time water cost calculator for all public water utility companies to enable communities make prudent decisions on water usage and the cost of water resources from the household level. The project seeks to create a clearer perspective of the water footprint of domestic activities in the two metropolitan Counties and how this water consumption affects rural communities in arid areas downstream

Cost of Water

We believe that fresh water should be affordable and accessible to all Kenyans and that water service providers must be transparent in water billing.

Water Law & Rights

We acknowledge that access to clean water is a fundamental human right and that all Kenyans have the right to information and participate in water legislation.

Distribution Schedules

We acknowledge that water availability is important for households and that the public must be made aware of water distribution schedules.

Climate Resilience

We recognize that we are in a global climate crisis and the conservation of freshwater resources is a civic responsibility.

Air & Water Quality

We recognize that we are in a global climate crisis and the conservation of freshwater resources is a civic responsibility.

Kenya is currently facing its worst drought in history with more than four million Kenyans being classified as “food insecure,” and 3.3 million more unable to get enough water to drink. The Horn of Africa region is highly susceptible to the vagaries of climate change and in the past two years has faced the worst locust infestation which has decimated farms across the region;

Domestic water consumption in Kenya accounts for 20% of all freshwater withdrawals, trailing agricultural usage at 79%. This is exacerbated by the additional fact that more half of all households in the country practice agriculture, creating a direct competition for fresh water resources with domestic and industrial uses, in addition to sustaining riverine and terrestrial ecosystems. The rapid growth of irrigated smallholder agriculture in the last two years is attributed to post-pandemic economic shocks but this is highly reliant upon erratic water supply by public water service providers and declining water quality and quantity from terrestrial aquifers. This represents the critical need to address domestic water consumption and prudent water use to sustain current freshwater reserves nationally;