Around 90% Yemenis Do Not Have Access to Sufficient Water and Only 40% to Safe Drinking Water. UN Uses Solar Energy to Provide Affordable Access to Clean Water

An estimated 90 per cent of Yemen’s population does not have access to sufficient water and only 40 per cent have access to safe drinking water.

Many Yemenis have no option but to drink unsafe water.

In 2017, this led to Yemen suffering the worst cholera outbreak in recorded history — over 1 million cases, more than half of which were children. New outbreaks constantly threaten people in Yemen.

How is Solar Energy Helping Yemen Access New Water Sources?

In response to severe water scarcity, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, is utilizing solar energy to provide reliable and affordable access to clean water for communities affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis in areas where fuel and electricity supply is either nonexistent, erratic or just too expensive.

Solar powered deep wells and pumps have been installed in three communities.

As there is no State generated electricity for these communities at the moment, the power generated from solar panels activates a pump that extracts water from the wells and then brings it into people homes.

Nearly a million litres are now being pumped by solar power every day through this project.

“After assessing a number of different solar pumping schemes in other humanitarian settings and evaluating the feasibility to solarize local water points in critical areas, we decided to adopt this renewable energy in our water projects across Yemen,” said Abdulmalek Al-Mogahed, IOM Yemen Engineer. “This not only cuts dependency and high recurrent costs of the fuel-based technology that we previously used, but also ensures essential water provision in places where supply and prices of fuel and other basic commodities are affected by the ongoing conflict and are erratic at best. The only way to continue to provide essential life-saving services, such as clean water, to people affected by Yemen’s conflict is by finding creative solutions that reduce service provision costs,” he added.