Workshop: Desalination Experiences in Namibia, 25th April 2008

On the 25^th April 2008, the CuveWaters project together with the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN) invited 25 stakeholders, practitioners and experts on water-related issues to a half-day workshop at the Habitat Research and Development Centre in Windhoek. The workshop aimed to summarise village-scale desalination experiences made in Namibia and discuss CuveWaters desalination activities planned. Therefore a talk was given by Detlof von Oertzen and Robert Schulz (DRFN) on “Village-scale and solar desalination technology experience in Namibia” followed by a talk from Heike Wanke (CuveWaters project coordinator) on “Solar thermal groundwater desalination plants for rural areas in central northern Namibia”. During the following discussions, critical village-scale implementation issues were defined and discussed thoroughly as there are: ownership, user needs and expectation, technical capacity – training and staff retention, ongoing maintenance, energy requirements, ease of relocation, institutional arrangement, security, upfront and long-term costs. Minutes of the workshop are available for download. The experiences made in Namibia are summarised in CuveWaters Papers 4 (584 kb pdf-file)