Kenya: Coca Cola Extends Multi-Billion Water Scheme
Dr Susan Mboya-Kidero, the president of Coca Cola Africa Foundation, speaks to The Star's John Muchangi about the project that has benefited more than two million people
What's the progress on Coca Cola's commitment to return every litre of water the company uses back to the environment?
Here at Coke we use a lot of water...and as a company we have set ourselves a target of returning to environment every litre that we use. The Coca Cola Africa Foundation (TCCAF) started more as an emergency response like the Red Cross. Then we realised we would rather do something more long-term, more sustainable and big, that would have significant impact.
Given the significance water has in Africa, we decided to focus on that. So we started the Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN). It's a commitment we made five years ago to provide water to two million beneficiaries in Africa. We would also return five million litres of water back to environment.
We committed $30 million (Sh2.7 billion) to that and decided we would look for partners to match that for a total of $60 million (Sh5.4 billion). As part of that, we would ensure 350,000 of the two million beneficiaries would be children in schools.
I should also mention we gave $200,000 (Sh18 million) towards purchasing medical equipment including beds for Ebola patients in September last year.
Are you also targeting Ebola affected countries - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - where doctors say water is literally the difference between life and death?
The best hope an Ebola patient has is to be re-hydrated. Ebola patients die primarily because of loss of fluid, then the blood pressure plummets because of the way the disease manifests itself through diarrhoea and vomiting. So treatment means to aggressively return the lost water.
So what we have done in Liberia is provided three water treatment centres that will in combination provide 22 million litres of water.
It's WHO quality water, which means it can be used for drinking, and medical activities like cleaning and sterilising equipment. We also wato to focus on rebuilding the country.
You know, jobs have been lost, you have more than 20,000 people who have been affected by the disease and are weak and need care. You have more than 5,000 orphans who will need care. So the foundation is saying, what can we do longterm? Now, more than 25 per cent of Liberians don't have access to water at all, so focusing our efforts there addresses this on a longer term in a sustainable manner.
Response by other donors was very slow, and a recent report by British Medical Journal says only a third of pledges made last year have come through.
I think you know only 30 per cent of the funding that was originally pledged has come in. So there's more than 60 per cent still waiting and people are asking, in Liberia there's only about 10 people infected now, what are you going to do with that money?
We believe that money needs to go into strengthening the health system and that's where our contribution with the Rain initiative is going.
Had the response been faster and bigger, we would have helped probably prevent the disaster that we saw. I believe part of the lethargy was, we have seen Ebola before and it never went beyond 30, 40 people.
We didn't realise we're dealing with countries and communities that had never seen this before and in the rural areas, where people resisted attempts to help them. It was a perfect storm.
Is the foundation involved in other projects on the continent?
The Rain initiative has been so successful. The funding comes to an end this year. But based on the success we've had, the Coca Cola company has made an additional commitment of $30 million through 2020 to expand the Rain programme.