Building Differently: What Osupukiai Is Teaching Us About Sustainable Development
When we began working in Osupukiai in 2021, access to water was one of the community's biggest priorities.
During periods of drought, women and children could travel up to 15km in search of water. Livestock, central to both Maasai culture and household livelihoods, were increasingly affected as traditional water sources dried up.
Working with the community, we invested in a solar-powered borehole, 20,000-litre storage system and water kiosk.
The difference was significant. When fully operational, the system provided water for up to 520 households and their livestock, as well as supplying nearby Elong'o School. During the severe East African drought of 2022, reported cattle losses in Osupukiai were around 20%, substantially lower than those reported in some surrounding communities.
Reliable water also opened up other possibilities. Women's groups explored vegetable growing and other enterprises. A men's group established a five-acre fodder pilot to help protect livestock during drought. At Elong'o School, water supported sanitation and plans for school agriculture.
Alongside this, we invested in education, digital learning, women's skills and access to finance.
There was real progress.
But sustainable community development isn't a straight line. Projects don't always develop as expected. Good ideas encounter unforeseen challenges. Infrastructure needs maintaining. Livelihoods that work in one set of circumstances can struggle when those circumstances change.
And in Osupukiai, sustaining all of this has proved harder than we expected.
Today, the Osupukiai borehole is not operational. The piping system carrying water from the borehole to the water kiosk and water troughs is not working, which has become a particular challenge as the community is currently experiencing drought. The water troughs are also in poor condition and can no longer hold water. In addition, the solar stands need painting and welding.
Restoring the system will require fixing the piping from the borehole to the water kiosk and troughs, along with welding and painting the solar stands.
The immediate priority is, of course, to restore reliable access to water. But simply repairing the infrastructure without addressing the reasons it became unsustainable would risk repeating the same cycle.
One of our biggest lessons from Osupukiai is that building infrastructure can sometimes be easier than building the systems needed to sustain it.
A community water system needs more than a borehole, solar pump and storage tanks. It needs clear responsibility for management and maintenance, a viable pricing model, consistent collection and management of income, and funds set aside for future repairs.
These weren't things we overlooked. From the outset, we worked with the community to develop a pricing and management model designed to cover the ongoing costs of the system. We were clear that without regular contributions, there would eventually be no funds available when repairs were needed.
What we underestimated was how difficult it would be to embed that model strongly enough for it to endure. Agreed contributions were not consistently collected and reserves for maintenance were not sustained. Underneath this was a deeper challenge: expectations that when something significant went wrong, we would ultimately return and pay to put it right.
That has sharpened our understanding of what Handshakes Not Handouts requires in practice. It isn't enough to agree a sustainable model or transfer responsibility on paper. We need to invest more deeply in the leadership, confidence, accountability and shared understanding that enable communities to take ownership of both the benefits and the responsibilities that come with managing a community asset.
For us, the lesson isn't that communities should be left to manage alone. It's that we need to become better at supporting the transition from PFP-supported infrastructure to genuinely locally owned and sustained infrastructure and be clearer about where our responsibility ends and community responsibility begins.
Our experience has also reinforced why we deliberately take an interconnected approach to community development.
Water wasn't a standalone project in Osupukiai. It supported livestock, education, sanitation and emerging livelihood opportunities. That created a multiplier effect when the system was working well. But interconnection also creates dependencies.
When reliable water became unavailable, some of the livelihood activities built around it became much harder to sustain. The five-acre fodder initiative, for example, was established to help provide livestock feed during drought and create an additional source of income. Its progress has also highlighted the importance of practical considerations such as storage, harvesting equipment and training.
That has made us think more carefully about resilience: not simply asking whether an initiative works today, but what it depends upon and what happens if one of those conditions changes.
Perhaps the most important learning has been about ownership.
Our Handshakes Not Handouts approach is based on a simple principle: we should work alongside communities rather than create long-term dependence on us.
But genuine community ownership is more complicated than asking people to form a committee or participate in a project.
It takes leadership, trust, accountability and shared responsibility. People need to understand not only what they will gain from an initiative, but the role they will play in sustaining it. Responsibilities need to be clear. Local leaders need the skills and confidence to make sometimes difficult decisions.
And that capability takes time to build.
In Osupukiai, we haven't always got this balance right. At times, expectations have developed that we will step in to fund or solve problems rather than the community having the structures and resources to respond itself.
Our answer isn't to walk away. Nor is it simply to step back in and take over.
It is to rebuild the partnership.
That means our immediate priority in Osupukiai is not to launch another series of projects. Instead, we're going back to the foundations.
We are working with local people to strengthen the governance and management arrangements around the water system and clarify responsibilities for its future operation.
We are reviewing livelihood initiatives with the community to understand what is working, what has struggled and where there is a realistic route to sustainability.
We are strengthening support around financial management, enterprise and local leadership.
And we're continuing to build on areas where progress has been stronger.
One example is Elong'o School. Our initial investment in solar power, an ICT hub, library and digital learning helped create opportunities for pupils and teachers. The school subsequently used that progress to attract additional investment independently of us, including funding for a new Junior Secondary classroom.
That's exactly what we want to see: our investment becoming a catalyst for what local institutions and communities can do next.
The lessons from Osupukiai don't stay there.
As we develop partnerships elsewhere, we are putting greater emphasis on governance, community contribution, sustainability and clarity about roles from the outset.
We are asking harder questions earlier.
Who will own this asset? Who will manage it? How will maintenance be paid for? What happens when something breaks? What capability needs to exist locally before we step back? What other activities depend on this intervention succeeding?
These questions aren't as visible as drilling a borehole or opening a training centre.
But they may ultimately matter more.
It would be easy to tell the story of Osupukiai only through its successes. It would also be wrong to define the partnership only by its current challenges.
Investment in water, education and livelihoods has created important opportunities and demonstrated what is possible. Some of those changes have endured; others have proved harder to sustain.
Our responsibility is not simply to move on to the next project.
It is to understand why, adapt our approach and work with the community to build stronger foundations for what comes next.
For us, that's what Handshakes Not Handouts means in practice: working alongside communities, sharing responsibility, learning together and focusing not just on what we can deliver today, but on what local people can sustain tomorrow.
