Kenya recently launched Africa’s first water fund, a public-private partnership aimed at raising $15 million to provide clean water to 9.3 million people by protecting the basin of the country’s longest river.

The Nature Conservancy, a United States-based charity backing the fund, says it will provide $2 in benefits for every $1 invested.

It said the fund could serve as a model for other water-stressed African nations dealing with the impacts of climate change and population growth.

Kenya’s population of around 45 million is predicted to double by 2045, according to the World Bank, increasing pressure on water supplies.

“Our civilisations will survive or will cease to exist just because of one element – water,” The Nature Conservancy’s director of field programmes in Africa, Charles Oluchina, said at the launch. “At the moment there is very little investment… and this is a way of trying to begin to shift the mindset.”

Kenya swings between drought and flood virtually every year, with vast sums spent on aid as crops either wilt or are swept away, along with people and homes.

The Tana River Basin supplies 95 percent of the capital Nairobi’s water and provides half of Kenya’s hydropower-generated electricity. It also supplies water to a million farms.

The fund plans to invest in agroforestry, drip irrigation, terracing and planting vegetation on riverbanks.

The fund will also make it cheaper to produce hydropower and clean water, its backers said. Kenya Electricity Generating Company will earn an extra $600 000 annually while Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company will save $250 000 a year through lower water filtering costs.

These government-owned companies are supporting the initiative, as well as Coca-Cola and East Africa Breweries. (Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by Ros Russell)

–Reuters