Rainwater Harvesting in Yemen: A Durable Solution for Water Scarcity

Across Yemen, countless rural villages lack basic services, but access to safe drinking water is the biggest challenge for many in these vulnerable communities. Obtaining drinking water is a daily chore, with the responsibility almost always falling on women and children to fetch water. The problem is getting worse as climate change makes rainfall scarcer and less reliable.

To improve access to potable water and support families in three villages, the World Bank and its partners worked with the communities to build their own rainwater harvesting schemes. The project also paid local workers for their part in constructing rainwater harvesting systems in the three villages: Al-Adn (Ba’adan in Ibb); Al-Anin (Wasab Al-Aali), Dhamar; and Hawf (Al-Mahra).

The project demonstrates a simple technology—harvesting rainwater in cisterns--that can play an increasingly important role in mitigating the effects of global warming and in improving the lives of many people, particularly those in rural areas.

Haliya Al-Jalal, a resident of the Al-Adn village and a mother of six children, says that her family had to walk long distances to collect water. “Fetching water from the stream caused us great hardship,” she says. “Many children dropped out of school to devote themselves to this task every day.”

The project demonstrates a simple technology that can play an increasingly important role in mitigating the effects of global warming and improving the lives of many people, particularly those in rural areas.

“After my children grew up, we started to rely on water trucking – but the prices are exorbitant. We had to save up money and sometimes had to choose between buying water or food.”

The village’s household rainwater harvesting cisterns have eased stresses on Haliya and her family. “We no longer have to go through the struggle of fetching water from remote areas,” she says. The new rainwater harvesting cistern “has put an end to our misery.”

The cisterns, which collect water from roofs and other nonporous surfaces, are built from stones and materials available in most Yemeni villages. The only thing people had to buy was cement for the internal walls of the tank and iron for the roof.

Work for Water

Aside from providing water, the project also provided paid employment to locals who worked on building the cisterns.

“The cash-for-work program was an incentive for us to start building the household rainwater harvesting cisterns,” explains Muhammad Al-Jamal, a father of 10, also from Al-Adn village. He adds, “We’re no longer wasting money on buying water from tankers, but most importantly, I’m glad that children will no longer have to drop out of school to fetch water.”

Yemen is considered one of the world’s most water- scarce countries. About 18 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation, and providing drinking water will likely be one of the biggest problems that people will encounter in coming years. Complicating the issue is the fact that conflict has had a severe impact on water infrastructure. Average annual rainfall varies, with droughts already affecting some areas – two issues exacerbated by climate change.

Mohammed Jubran, a former member of the local council in Wesab al-Aali (Dhamar), says the water scarcity that blights the area has started undermining the local social structure. “Water is often collected from streams at least an hour-and-a-half walk from the village. Children carry plastic water containers on their heads, which puts strain on them physically and mentally.” He adds that because the task often has to be done twice a day, the sheer number of hours involved means many are forced to drop out of school. This has led many residents to migrate to live on the outskirts of cities.

But “clean water is now close to our homes,” continues Mohammed. “This has allowed many children, especially girls, to go back to school and continue their education.”

Aside from providing water, the project also provided paid employment to locals who worked on building the cisterns.

Empowering Communities

Another benefit of the household rainwater harvesting schemes is that they have enabled communities to collect rainwater in large quantities and store it in cisterns for future use – instead of having to relying on contaminated public ponds.

“Residents of Hawf have been suffering from water scarcity. Their suffering was increased by the high prices of water tankers – which meant that many families simply could not afford this option,” says Yasser Jamaan, Water and Environment Project Officer at the Social Fund for Development in the surrounding governorate of Al-Mahra. “But the building of a public rainwater harvesting reservoir has brought smiles back to people’s faces,” he says.

Ali Bakrit, a 41-year-old resident of Hawf District, adds “Sometimes we were left without water for days, but now that problem is gone; this is a dream come true.”

The water conservation schemes are part of the World Bank’s International Development Association, Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project (YECRP), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the Social Fund for Development and the Public Works Project in Yemen. The project aimed to enhance the climate resilience of vulnerable communities. So far, YECRP has supported the construction of 1,279 public and 30,686 household rainwater harvesting reservoirs and cisterns across Yemen, providing nearly 900,000 cubic meters of clean water.

The World Bank also supports a broad effort to improve access to water and sanitation for millions of people in Yemen through similar partnerships with United Nations agencies such as UNDP, UNICEF, UNOPS and WHO. Some 3.36 million people gained access to improved water sources in cholera-affected areas of the country through the Emergency Health and Nutrition Project; 3.24 million gained access to sanitation services. The Yemen Integrated Urban Services Emergency Project, covering 16 urban areas, rehabilitated a water system and 113 wells, providing more than 1.1 million people with access to water and sanitation. The project also installed eight solar photovoltaic (PV) systems for municipal water wells and 40 solar PV systems for rural communities’ water wells.