Wednesday 15 July by Moses Mwangi | South East Kenya University (SEKU)
Moses is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Hydrology and Aquatic Sciences at South Eastern Kenya University (SEKU). His background is in water engineering and water resources management. His research focuses on sustainable water access in arid and semi-arid ecosystems in Kenya, including work on dew and fog harvesting, sand dams, and the effects of land use change on water availability. He coordinates several international research projects on water, food systems and climate change, and has collaborated with the African Studies Centre Leiden on research across four river basins in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands. He supports this Week on frugal business models
by Moses Mwangi
The problem
Kenya is a water scarce country. Over 80% of the country is either arid or semi-arid. The regions receive less than 500m of annual rainfalls. The situation means water un-availability for people and livelihoods is wide and vast. The water scarcity directly causes unhygienic conditions by forcing individuals to prioritize limited clean water for drinking rather than sanitation. This lack of water for handwashing, bathing, and cleaning enables rapid spread of diseases, while stagnant water introduces severe public health hazards. Around half of all the illnesses reported in Kenyan hospitals are related to water, not because solutions do not exist. Because the solutions that exist do not reach the people who need them, and when they do reach them, they rarely last.
Without sufficient water, basic handwashing which is the primary defense against the spread of germs becomes impossible. This leads to rapid spread of gastrointestinal illnesses. When water is scarce, sanitation practices are compromised, which lead to many water related diseases. A lack of water for bathing leads to poor personal hygiene, resulting in a surge of eye infections, skin rashes, scabies, and lice, especially among children.
Absence of adequate water leads to compromised food and domestic safety. Existence of contaminated food preparation prevail. Water used for washing and cooking may be drawn from unsafe, stagnant, or untreated sources, introducing bacteria directly into the food supply. Households struggle to properly wash plates, pots, and utensils, allowing disease-causing pathogens to build up on surfaces.
When clinics and hospitals lack consistent water supplies, they cannot sterilize equipment, maintain sanitary wards, or practice basic infection control. Unhygienic conditions in schools lead to high absenteeism, particularly affecting girls who lack proper sanitation facilities during menstruation. In the dense urban areas, the absence of running water often means drainage systems fail to flush properly. This results in backed-up sewage, foul odors, and pooling gray water. Stagnant water creates ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes and harmful bacteria, drastically increasing the risk of diseases.
Waterborne diseases are a significant public health challenge in Kenya, driven by infrastructure limitations, and inadequate management. The most prevalent illnesses include cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, and parasitic infections like bilharzia. The transmission of these diseases is closely tied to the contamination of water sources. The most affected population is in the rural areas where over 80% of the population reside. These are also the areas that poverty levels are at the highest, and the reach to services are lowest. Thus, having local measures that can alleviate the water supply and use problems are at the highest demand. The water provision innovations side has experienced some good attempts such as in water manufacturing. The quality aspects have however received the least attention as concentration seems to be on quantities.
Approaches in Water Treatment in Kenya
Two main approaches dominate water treatment in Kenya, and both fall short in different ways. The Kenyan government has concentrated on macro water treatment systems that largely serve urban areas. This highlights a major structural challenge in the country. While the national government heavily prioritizes bulk mega-infrastructure and large treatment plants for the urban areas, formal water network coverage in rural areas sits at just 56%, forcing many to rely on untreated surface water. The urban focus benefits high-capacity networks, which have pushed urban safe water access to over 91%. The Rural Deficit leads to rural expanses to rely on decentralized, community-managed, and often voluntary systems. These micro-systems frequently struggle with poor maintenance, and water contamination. To secure safe drinking water, some rural communities have decentralized, grassroots, and point-of-use innovations. Point-of-Use household methods come into place, particularly through coagulation and flocculation. Households frequently use water treatment sachets, mostly distributed by agencies for free to quickly clarify and disinfect highly turbid water. Chemical disinfection is also carried out through socially-marketed chlorine solutions to kill pathogens at home. However, a much larger portion of the population struggles with broader poverty. Nearly 50% (over 25 million people) live below the national poverty line, surviving on less than $3 a day. As a result, a chlorine tablet is not a priority. Another common problem with water quality is that when clean water does reach a household, the health problem does not always end. Quality usage is wanting as families use unsafe water for washing utensils and then use them to drink treated water. The related problem is that knowledge of how to use water safely does not accompany the commodity supply. This affects usage of chemicals used at the household level for water treatment. Doses are precise but the instructions are not always understood. Bottled water is a class product in the name of safe water. But it does not meet the required quality standards. Other than the quality of the content, the safety of the packaging is wrong as the plastic bottles used are not UV treated, thus introducing additional health risks. These are some of the limitations that make families use filtration clay pots or strain water through fine cloth to remove suspended solids, followed by safe storage to prevent contamination. Resulting from scarcity, some of the wastewater is recycled.
Water safety solution(s) from nature
Nature-based solutions have been identified to be effective for the marginalized rural communities as they directly improve water availability in quantity and quality to the benefit of local livelihoods, enhance food security, and build climate resilience using cost-effective, community-led practices. These approaches bring targeted, practical benefits while empowering local and vulnerable groups. A lesson learnt is that to truly benefit the marginalized, the nature based solutions must be socially inclusive, rights-based, and locally led. Successful implementation heavily depends on secure equitable resource access, and the integration of traditional indigenous knowledge with scientific methods.
Some of the decentralized, low-cost nature-based solutions for rural water treatment harness natural processes involve use of sand and gravel filters, charcoal clothe, and plant uptake to purify water that also take care of microbial breakdown and removal of heavy metals. The mix provides a reliable defense against harmful pathogens, heavy metals, and chemical contaminants, while significantly improving taste and odor. However, they do not reliably eliminate microscopic bacteria, viruses, or parasites. For safe drinking water, it is then advised to disinfect the filtered water by properly boiling it or using water purification tablets.
Nature-based solutions for water treatment are highly sustainable because they replace or complement energy-intensive grey infrastructure, drastically lowering carbon footprints while providing vital co-benefits like biodiversity restoration, climate resilience, and reduced long-term maintenance costs. The methods require less energy and fewer chemicals than conventional treatment plants, while also creating thriving local habitats and boosting climate resilience. By relying on gravity, vegetation, and microbial action, nature based solutions in water treatment drastically cut down on maintenance costs. They also support local biodiversity and offer community amenities and enhanced aesthetic value.
Students Frugal Water Filtration Innovation
During the 2024-2025 academic year, three students from the LDE Frugal Innovation Minor travelled to a rural village in Kenya and worked on a water filter using a combination of sand, gravel and commercially available cotton to clean household greywater for possible safe recirculation. They stayed with a local family, and interacted with the local community. In the process, it was possible to identify water to be a priority problem in the households. Consequently, they chose to work with the people on a greywater treatment gadget as a way of providing an extra water source that support livelihoods. A driving philosophy was that materials had to be locally available. The filtered water was tested in a conventional water laboratory for quality. it. The water quality was found not to be good for human consumption but could be used on some plants. The method proved to be best for pre-treating highly turbid water. This was however concluded found to be a good start, setting room for further work, to consequently arrive at a suitable innovation.
The low-cost frugal, nature-based water treatment was picked up by SEKU and university of Texas students who added moringa oloifera (drumstick) seeds, clothe and plant leaves to clean the water. By harnessing the natural processes like sedimentation, these sustainable, community-level approaches proved to require minimal maintenance, using crushed, natural seeds or plant material to coagulate and settle suspended dirt and bacteria. The coagulated sediment (along with most bacteria) sink to the bottom.
The most recent water quality tests carried out in February 2026 showed considerable improvement. Fluoride levels reduced from over 2.5 parts per million to under 1, against a WHO norm of 1.5. Iron levels, that were high because rainwater collected from rusting corrugated roofs and rocky areas, came down significantly. The results were promising, though the water did not yet consistently meet all WHO requirements for safe drinking water. People in the experiment area are using the gadget anyway. A church has installed a water filter for people to drink from after the Sunday service, even as further testing and improvement were still underway. The filter has also begun to spread beyond the original student project, with households and community organizations building or using their own versions. Two fifth-year students have made the water filter project their final year project. This is what made Dominique who was one of the three students who made the first version and now works for the VOICE remark as: "I wasn't sure if people after us would pick up this project. So I love to hear that it has improved."
"I wasn't sure if people after us would pick up this project. So I love to hear that it has improved."
The lessons learnt from the students frugal water filter innovations tend to get stuck between three stages:
1) desirability: understanding what people actually need, which is what Dominique and her colleagues endeavored to do by living in the rural villages with communities, asking questions and ultimately participatorily arriving at decisions on way forward in solving a water problem, 2) feasibility: developing and testing whether the thought solution can technically work, which is what the students did, and 3) viability: establishing whether a business model that can sustain the frugal innovation. The third stage is work in progress, which must come up with a sustainability indication. The presentation agreed with what Elsie had pointed out in her five business Kenyan business models presentation that ‘knowing what people need and building something that works is not enough if nobody has figured out how to keep it going’.
Why Most Frugal Water Innovations Do Not Scale
Moses identified thirteen barriers to scaling and marketing frugal water innovations, critical being a) Cultural resistance that herald in attitudes that are manifested in various ways. Someone who has lived on a certain water and never become ill does not see the problem the filter is aimed to solve, b) Hyper-localization has it that a solution that works in one village does not necessarily work in the neighboring ones. The primary materials may not be available, or missing altogether, c) lifecycle gap consideration is a necessity in that frugal innovations are designed to be built rarely to be repaired or replaced. When something breaks and no one knows how to fix it, the innovation stops. This is a failure of not thinking past the point of first use. This has to be linked with the d) circularity school of thought, and factoring in the issue of how components are replaced, and what happens when the innovation reaches the end of its useful life. There is the e) political and industrial element that invites taking cognizance of local and geopolitics, corruption, political interest, and industry resistance. Companies that earn money from existing water solutions, chemical suppliers, energy providers with political connections, have little interest in seeing those solutions displaced. The space that frugal innovation has to operate in is not neutral.
Mitigating factors to scaling and marketing
Nature-based frugal innovations in water treatment use low-cost, decentralized, and ecosystem-mimicking processes like bio-sand filtration, and phytoremediation to purify water. Because these systems lack the fail-safes of mechanical infrastructure, specific mitigation factors require to be integrated to ensure consistent water quality and system resilience. Frugal innovations in water treatment are designed to be radically affordable, low-maintenance, and locally sourced. However, these resource-constrained systems face significant risks, including low scalability, high maintenance failure rates, and siloed research. The primary limitations include undercapitalization, lack of standardized infrastructure, weak intellectual property protection, and the paradox of maintaining radical affordability while trying to build complex distribution networks. In other words, the innovations face challenges of quality perceptions and standardization. Frugal designs are sometimes perceived as cheap or inferior. Overly cutting costs at the expense of durability or essential functionalities alienates mainstream consumers, while modifying the product for broader markets risks driving up costs and violating the core principle of frugality.
Cognizance is scaling nature-based frugal innovations in water treatment by creating high-quality, affordable solutions by optimizing resources and stripping out complexity is difficult. It requires overcoming social, cultural, technical, environmental, and economic bottlenecks. On the whole, scaling requires resolving the frugal scalability paradox, which balances localized, context-specific design with standard, investable frameworks. Successfully scaling the solutions also demands targeted mitigation of specific ecological, financial, and regulatory risks. To overcome the related barriers, innovators and scaling firms are advised to adopt ecosystem approaches, such as forming strategic partnerships with larger corporations, leveraging digital platforms, utilizing hybrid financing models. Thus, mitigating the pitfalls requires multi-disciplinary collaboration, community integration, and systemic funding. Other mitigation strategies include diversifying business models, and deploying hybrid infrastructures. Utilizing incubation programs and interactive, learning-based financing models helps innovators navigate commercialization uncertainties and scale beyond localized, isolated clusters. Circular resource valorization is a necessity as mitigating employing "life-support engineering" that valorizes byproducts and creates independency from large infrastructure spells sustainability.
Sustainability of Nature-Based Frugal Innovations
The lessons learnt from the nature-based water filter experiment is that to build the long-term sustainability of frugal innovations, whether in resource-scarce communities or emerging markets, they must transition from simple "low-cost hacks" to structured, durable systems. The vouched for actionable framework include the following:
Optimize the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): it is crucial to ensure that the innovation is affordable not just to purchase, but to maintain. Therefore, it is important to design for local reparability using accessible, off-the-shelf components to prevent the product from becoming obsolete when it breaks.
Transitioning to Circular Business Models: There is need to aim to move away from one-off sales to Product-as-a-Service (PaaS) models. By leasing or renting the innovation, the creator retains ownership, which incentivizes using durable, recyclable materials and guarantees proper end-of-life disposal.
Localize the Supply Chain: Frugal innovations should foster inclusive grassroots ecosystems by utilizing indigenous knowledge and local raw materials. This reduces dependency on volatile global supply chains and ensures the solution is culturally integrated. Innovations that disrupt local supply chains often fail long-term, hence the need for integrating the frugal innovation with existing local economies. Aligning with regional ecosystems ensures lasting market viability.
Secure Hybrid Financing: Blending initial capital or micro-credit loans with revenue models that empower local micro-entrepreneurs spells suitability of the innovation. The innovation needs to partner with NGOs or developmental funds to achieve economies of scale and drive broader adoption. Integrating micro-credit and flexible payment systems to make solutions permanently affordable without sacrificing quality is of value.
Adopt Circular Business Models: To prevent frugal products from becoming cheap, disposable waste, shift from a traditional "take-make-dispose" model to a circular lifecycle. Success relies on circular-economy principles, robust community co-creation, and scalable business models that reduce reliance on perpetual subsidies. It is important to design frugal innovations with locally available or repurposed materials. As such, the design needs to be oriented to for repair abilities, with modular designs that allow local community members to swap out broken parts.
Local Capacity: Frugal innovation thrives on simplicity, but it must also be maintainable by the end-users without relying on highly specialized, expensive corporate technicians. It is good to invest in grassroots capacity-building through local training. If users understand how to fix, adapt, and upgrade the technology, adoption rates and product lifespans increase. A most important aspect to embrace is co-knowledge and skills creation. This requires engaging local micro-entrepreneurs and civil society organizations in the design phase. A deep understanding of indigenous knowledge and local constraints prevents solutions from being tone-deaf.
Eco-Efficiency: Ensure energy efficiency and minimal environmental impact throughout the entire product lifecycle.
Moses summarized the additions by reiterating that the six principles of frugal innovation revolve around 1) co-creating value with “prosumers”, 2) creating sustainable solutions, 3) engaging with the market to drive cost-effective research and development, 4) creating frugal supply chains and manufacturing operations, 5) shaping customer behavior, and 6) “making innovative friends”. Added is creating a frugal company culture and effective change management.
Into the Breakout Rooms
Five questions were prepared for the session. Two of them were worked on in breakout groups.
Group 1: What measures are needed to overcome the barriers to scaling frugal water innovations?
The group reported having consensus that local materials and local trust are the foundation of removing barriers to scaling innovation. A water filter built from materials the community recognizes and can source from its environment spells a path to concrete ownership and capacity to operate and maintain. The embracement of ownership provides a platform to access information on the ideals of the innovation ideals, and appropriate water handling for water related diseases control and system sustenance. information as through contaminated. People need to understand not just how to use the filter but why the water coming out is safer than the water going in. Without that, even a well-built filter will not be used consistently. The group suggested community health workers as a way to build the knowledge base alongside the technology. A participant from India said this already exists in the country through a government programme. Women workers move from door-to-door to talk to households about waterborne disease and basic health practices. She trains them herself. Moses confirmed that Kenya has a comparable system in marginalized communities though not as objective and successful as the Indian one.
Elsie, who was in this group, added something calling on the political will of the government. She recognized that the government is responsible for provision of adequate and safe water. In Kenya, this is a constitutional obligation. Maybe if it did well in meeting its obligations there would be no need to think of frugal innovations. She ‘however added that ‘But you also have to be pragmatic. You cannot just wait for the government to act when people are getting sick. You have to do something’.
Group 2: Does the difficulty of scaling mean that frugal innovations are not effective, or not the right approach?
One participant shared a concern that the group had discussed relating to whether making drinking water from grey water was not a too ambitious a goal, noting that drinking water standards are precise and the people using the water filter are human beings, consequently wondering thus ‘Is the innovation setting itself up to fall short of a bar it was never designed to reach?’
Another participant proposed a way forward of making use of the filter for crops and livestock needs, and applying boiling as the final step for drinking. She described a model from India where treated wastewater goes to agriculture, with a separate medicinal plant stage for drinking water. Water safe enough to irrigate plants and keep livestock alive is already an innovation worth investing in, for communities that currently have neither. She reiterated that ‘If you focus all your energy on reaching drinking water standards, you risk burying the innovation you have already made’
Four Principles and One Condition
Drawing together the two breakout discussions, four immediate principles were highlighted.
Focus on core needs and remove everything else. Treat limited budgets, materials and time as creative constraints rather than obstacles.
Use local and existing resources. Source locally, use materials that are available and affordable in that environment, and keep production costs low by building local supply chains.
Co-create with the community from the beginning to the end, not just at the testing stage. The people who will use the innovation have the best insights into what will actually work. Test prototypes with them. Continuously gather feedback and use it in making revisions to the innovation.
Build an accessible business model. It is important to scale out rather than up. Decentralizing manufacturing will allow the solution to be adapted without specialist expertise. Use of micro-payments or single-use sizes need be embraced so that even the poorest households can afford to participate.
Underneath the four principles, there is need to consider sustainability by for example, considering who repairs the innovation when it breaks, and who passes the knowledge to others.
"Maybe the challenge in frugal innovations is really pushing the agenda within public service design, rather than beside it."
A reflection appeared in the chat at the end of the session: "Maybe the challenge in frugal innovations is really pushing the agenda within public service design, rather than beside it." In other words: it is appropriate to stop building around what government should be doing, and start pushing government to actually do it. Moses agreed, adding that ‘a country with a functioning water supply system like the Netherlands does not need to think so hard about frugal innovations for safe water supply. The question for developing countries like Kenya is how to get there. Until then, you have to be pragmatic. You have to think from beginning to the end. This is where frugal innovations come to play. And, as an innovator, you have to think about what happens after you leave the scene!’ He added that the ‘the two children in the opening photos are not sick because no solution really exists. They are sick because the solutions that exist do not reach them, do not last long enough, and are not always picked up by the next person when the first one leaves. That is not solely a technical problem but a multifaceted one that requires a sober approach, thus inviting frugal concerns’