As of the 2010 constitution, all persons have a right to receive an equal share in the provision of socio-economic including access to standard and rational sanitation and access to clean and safe water in large quantities.
This has been made possible by the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank to fund the Government of Kenya with US$96 million for the construction of a four phased Thwake Multipurpose Water Development Program (TMWDP).
About 64,700 people from rural areas of Kitui, Makueni, some occupants of Konza City and Athi River Water Basin will greatly benefit from the water project that will cost UA 487 million in completion of all phases.
The project aims at increasing water storage for rural-urban human use, irrigation, livestock and hydropower in semi-arid counties of Kitui, Makueni and Konza city over the next ten years so as to improve productivity and livelihoods.
The water project will be useful for hydropower generation, irrigation development so as to regulate flows on Athi River downstream in effort to curb flood and drought cases in the counties.
The dam four phase initiated dam project by the Bank’s team in the department of water, agriculture and energy consists of 1) construction of a 77 m high multi-purpose dam and associated preliminary works needed to enable the other three phases, plus implementing an Environmental and Social Management Plan,(2) water works to treat and distribute up to 34.6 thousand m3 of water to 674.7 thousand rural inhabitants of Kitui and Makueni Counties, and up to 117.2 thousand m3 to 640 thousand inhabitants of Konza City; (3) hydropower and substation development for up to 20 MW of installed capacity, and (4) irrigation works for up to 40,075 hectares of land in Kitui and Makueni counties.
The bank will finance phase 1 project with UA179.29 million will be sourced out as follows UA 60.00 million from ADF 12 Performance Based Allocation for Kenya, a loan of UA 1.68 million and UA 1.21 million as grant from Redeployment.
The Program symbolizes a mutual relationship between Kenya’s water secure and insecure regions by straddling both the lower and higher levels of the economy to ensure that national economic growth is both inclusive and sustainable.
The dam’s phase 1 construction is in association with Kenya’s National Water Master Plan 2030 and Medium Term Plan II (2013-2017) and allied to the government new Water Security and Climate Resilience Program (WSCRP) financed by World Bank. This project will help facilitate an institutional framework and strengthen capacity for water security and climate changes to encourage irrigation.
The Medium Term Plan -II aids in irrigation of an additional one million acres of land by the year 2018 that will see the growth of Konza City as an ICT hub, low cost of electricity in rural households, promote green growth and deal with climate change.
This project will draw attention to the drawbacks incurred from underinvestment in water resources improvement, growth of infrastructure to alleviate livelihoods, irrigation, hydropower developments on food and energy and ICT hub that will place Kenya top in regional economic significance.
The program is aligned to the Bank’s ten year development strategy for the year 2013-2022 and goes hand in hand with Kenya’s current Country Strategy Paper (CSP) Pillar 1 which focuses on infrastructure development to increase competition and regional integration and Pillar II which addresses employment creation and poverty eradication.