Kilifi has the highest proportion of residents being served by piped water of all counties outside the capital city of Nairobi according to a 2024 report.
Last year, a performance report of the Kenya Water Services Sector was released by Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) showing some 1.1m residents of Kilifi could be accessing piped water at June 2022.
A year after, this numbers might have increased. The 2024 numbers translates to Water Coverage of 73% of the County Population, the highest rate of any County besides Nairobi, the Kenyan capital with 4 million residents with piped water acces translating to 86% of the City population.Improved access to water is important for health, productivity, and economic development.
If there is better access to clean water and sanitation services in Kilifi County, tremendous opportunity for the poor will be created thus a progressive for economic growth. As this post articulates the link between water and economy, Chaduchinews commends the institutional efforts made by one of the Kilifi Water Bodies in investing in water management and services for the last few months.
The improvement in service delivery by Kilifi Mariakani Water and Sanitation Company is absolutely essential for the eradication of poverty and is a necessary condition for enabling sustained economic growth in our great County.
By July 2024, water supply in Kilifi has increased by about 40 million litres per day after massive investment by KIMAWASCO, Coast Water Services Development Agency under able funding of the World Bank.
This is effectively ending the need for rationing.Kilifi County currently receives about 1.55 billion litres per month, an increase of about 30 per cent from about 1.15 billion litres per month before the completion of the WB funded Baricho-Kakuyuni Water Supply Project commissioned by President William Ruto in July 2024.
This project has improved sustainability and security of key agencies installations to avert any future disruptions in water supply thus enhancing household connectivity in Kilifi County. Before July 2024 (commissioning of this project) only 28,000 water connections could be traced against a service demand of more than 100,000 in all the municipalities in Kilifi County.
The project constructed 29.5 kilometre of 800mm diameter pipeline, 5 million litres storage reservoirs, pumping station and other ancillary works.
Additionally, the Baricho water works has seen significant expansion with a number of other completed donor financed projects which includes the rehabilitation of three boreholes with a daily production of 33 million litres per day that were destroyed by floods in 2018 when River Sabaki burst its banks!
