What happened
The PlayPump was a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump. As children spun it, it pumped groundwater into a storage tower, and advertising on the tower was meant to pay for upkeep. Its founder, Trevor Field, had installed hundreds across South Africa and its neighbors, and in 2000 the World Bank recognized the technology for innovation. FRONTLINE/World profiled it in 2005, and the story helped build enthusiasm among donors.
In September 2006, at the Clinton Global Initiative, Laura Bush, Bill Clinton and the philanthropists Jean and Steve Case announced $16.4 million to install PlayPumps across sub-Saharan Africa: $10 million from the U.S. government, $5 million from the Case Foundation and $1.4 million from the MCJ Foundation. A new nonprofit, PlayPumps International, set out to install 4,000 pumps by 2010, and celebrities joined the fundraising.
Trouble showed up in the field. Save the Children, a partner, heard on site visits that pumps were breaking down and that some communities were rejecting them. By late 2009, only 42 of its 80 planned pumps in Mozambique had been installed, and 13 of those were working properly. A 2007 UNICEF assessment in South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia raised concerns about safety, maintenance and effectiveness and recommended installing PlayPumps only at schools, but the report was not released publicly. A 2008 report for Mozambique’s government noted the technology’s merits but found installation and maintenance problems. No advertisers had come forward in rural areas to pay for upkeep, and the pumps delivered less water per hour than the hand pumps they had often replaced.
In September 2009 PlayPumps International acknowledged “challenges” and temporarily suspended new installations. It gave its remaining pumps to the charity Water for People, and in 2010 it stopped raising money for the technology. Jean Case published a personal letter on the Case Foundation’s website about what the foundation had learned. FRONTLINE/World, whose first story had helped make the pump famous, broadcast its own follow-up investigation in June 2010.
Where it sits in the system
Clean water for a village is prevention (level 2) on the depth scale. What failed was not the goal but the system around it. A vivid image drew money faster than evidence could (Story Bias). Problems seen in the field took years to reach donors (the Missing Feedback Loop). Some communities rejected the pumps, and some lost hand pumps that had worked better, a sign that the people who would use the water were not the ones deciding what to install (the Missing Voice). And a critical assessment stayed internal while fundraising went on (the Silence About Failure).
What carries over
Pilot and measure before scaling, ask users before installing, and treat early warnings from field partners as data. The public admission at the end is the behavior a healthy system should reward, and the Failure Archive exists to make such admissions normal and early. What would make it so is Open Problem 9, the Failure Commons.
Lessons for the system
- A story can outrun the evidence. The picture of children playing while water flowed raised millions and a 4,000-pump target before independent field assessments came in.
- Bad news traveled slowly. Field partners saw breakdowns early and a 2007 UNICEF assessment raised concerns, but the report stayed internal, and the first public acknowledgment came in 2009.
- When the people who will use a technology don’t choose it, mismatches follow. In some places a PlayPump replaced a hand pump that delivered more water per hour.
- Stopping a program and explaining why, in public, is how the field learns. It works best when it happens early.