KENYA’S MAASAI MARA reserve is internationally recognized as the home of the wildebeest migration. This spectacular phenomenon attracts thousands of guests each season, as they witness an epic movement of herd animals and their fight to survive predation. The park includes long sections of the Mara River and is home to the Maasai community, who have for decades shepherded their cattle across these sweeping grasslands. Now, due to low rainfall, high temperatures and population pressure, the Maasai people in the Mara find themselves confronting a new challenge: finding clean water.

Nearly 90 percent of the Maasai families living in the Mara lack access to clean water. Each day, they must trek long hours in search of watering holes, where they wash clothes, water livestock, and fetch their own water for drinking. Oftentimes this water comes from highly polluted streams, and must be boiled several times to make it safe for consumption. The task of fetching water is mostly reserved for girls and women.

That includes girls like Naetoi, who is 9 years old and used to have to make long treks looking for water. (Naetoi’s name has been changed to allow her to speak candidly about her experience.) On some days, Naetoi would wake up at 4 am, before her parents, and begin her journey alone, carrying a 20-liter plastic jerry can. On other days, she was joined by her mother or other children. During the dry season, from June to October, Naetoi and her mother would walk up to 35 kilometers in search of water.

“I would wake up at dawn, take my jerry can and a heap of clothes that needed washing,” Naetoi recalled recently. “Some of the girls at the homestead would be awake too. We would begin the trek into the wilderness, telling stories. By the time we got to a spring, it would be afternoon. We would wash clothes, fetch water. Then we would begin the journey back. That’s a whole day spent searching for water.” Once she arrived home, she would begin other duties, like beading and cooking.

The long walks came with the risk of wildlife attacks. Naetoi recalls how a hippo trampled one of the children from their village as they were fetching water. Human-wildlife conflicts are common during the dry season, when villagers go farther from their homes in search of water. The route Naetoi takes to fetch water is located in an animal corridor. Human-wildlife conflicts are an unintended impact of conservation efforts there. The rainy season, meanwhile, brings its own difficulties, as the streams that do run tend to be polluted by waste and agricultural runoff.

On top of the dangers associated with collecting water, the act of carrying heavy loads of water itself can be a strain physically. Maasai women must take care of the livestock and household — cooking, cleaning, washing clothes. These things take much more time when water is scarce. By the end of the day, there is little time left for anything else.

As climate changes, there has been less water, but no less need for it. The time it takes to fetch and prepare water means time away from school, leading to low attendance and high dropout rates. (Although the government provides free education in Kenya, it is estimated that only 48 percent of girls enroll in school and that only 5 percent make it to secondary school.)

The issue is worsened by the belief in the Maasai community that a girl’s education is disadvantageous to the household. Girls are socialized for marriage, child bearing, and maintaining the household, a practice that creates a cycle of poverty.

IN ARID PLACES around the world, communities are experiencing growing water demand and growing scarcity. Researchers project that growing water demand will surpass supply by more than 50 percent by 2030 in developing countries, including here in Sub-Saharan Africa. US Agency for International Development’s Global Waters program classifies Kenya as a water-scarce country, with low annual rainfall and water availability. These water security challenges are exacerbated by general population growth, rapid urbanization, and climate variability.

Maasai pastoralists in the Mara area also face declining flow rates in the Mara River, a crucial water source for both people and wildlife. Reports indicate reductions of up to 30 percent over the past few decades. This decline is largely due to increased water extraction and land use changes.

Local water security initiatives, such as the Water Resource User Associations (WRUAs), are struggling to manage these pressures effectively. Despite their efforts to implement sustainable water management practices, such as promoting the construction of rainwater harvesting systems and water catchment conservation, these initiatives are hindered by inadequate funding and resources. This lack of financial support limits their ability to monitor and manage water resources effectively, further exacerbating the water scarcity issues faced by the Maasai Mara.

So far, the local water management projects are operating at only 50 percent of their required funding levels, according to researchers, which severely limits their capacity to address water security challenges. Meanwhile, the Maasai Mara’s population has grown substantially, an estimated 10.4 percent per year, increasing demand.

IN 2017, MARAFIKI COMMUNITY INTERNATIONAL, a nonprofit, invested in providing clean water to the Oloolaimutia community, near the entrance of the Maasai Mara reserve. The organization set up a water grid, piping water to the plots and homes in the town. They provide free water to the Maasai, but charge the business owners and others in the area. This water grid is one of the few places where the Indigenous community can access water for free.

“When we got here, we noticed that the Oloolaimuta community badly needed water,” Marta Mwaniki, team lead at Marafiki, said. “The shocking part is that the community is located within meters of the entrance to the park, where thousands of tourists pay $200 a day in this season to visit.”

Governance challenges have compounded the problem. More than 15 different water management bodies are involved in the Mara River Basin. These Water Resource User Associations (WRUAs) are voluntary organizations run by the water users themselves, working within the boundary of a river basin, including small-scale farmers, pastoralists, schools, commercial farms, tourist lodges, and others. The law resulted in fragmented governance and coordination problems that hamper effective water resource management. It also led to the privatization of critical water resource areas and the commodification of water points that originally belonged to the Maasai community.

The water security issue, in other words, is not just climate driven, but the product of privatization and commoditization of formerly common-pool resources. The weak enforcement of regulations by the county government, along with political interference and corruption, have also led to mismanagement of water. These issues can undermine the efficiency and equity of water distribution and management.

The Maasai face two major issues with water, she said. “The first issue is: Is the water clean? If it is not, it needs to be boiled, and for that, firewood needs to be collected, which takes a lot of time. The second issue is: How far is the water source? If you have a water source that’s within 100 meters of your community, then that’s definitely better. But if a household requires 20 liters per person per day, think about the amount of time spent fetching water for a family of, say, six.”

In the case of the Mara, the infrastructure needed to locate, harvest, and pipe water is expensive. Although such a task is usually a government responsibility, there is little effort from their end to help the communities in the region. Meanwhile, private investors must wait many years for a return on water investment, and the population of Mara is too sparse to generate a high return. Still, water is key to development, especially for the Maasai, who rely on their livestock for wealth.

Communities near Ololaimutia Gate are benefitting from the efforts of Marafiki Community. Yet, everyone deserves clean water. This year, the organization is trying to fundraise to develop the water grid for a primary school in the area, as well as other Maasai villages further away.

The founders of Marafiki Organization believe that the communities within the Maasai Mara and other water starved rural areas in Kenya, require support and proof of concept to come together. “Currently, the rains are heavy, and it’s possible they would be able to sustain cattle through droughts,” Mwaniki said. “The Maasai have enough land, and with agreement amongst them, they would be able to have a lot more sustainable water.”

As the organization and other locals strive to look for solutions to the issue, the Mara continues to record high cases of waterborne diseases, early childhood death, and school absenteeism, due to the lack of clean drinking water. Women and other girls like Naetoi continue to bear the brunt, as they walk for miles in search of water, particularly during the drought season.

Since the installation of the water grid, however, women and girls in the region have had more time to invest in education and other income-generating activities. Naetoi currently attends the Ripoi primary school in the reserve. She walks just 3 kilometers a day, from home and school, and dreams of becoming a nurse, or even a doctor. She is aware of how lucky she is to have an opportunity to study, she said, and she hopes that she’ll go on to secondary school and university.

“My hopes are that I will continue to go to school, learn, and graduate,” she said. “The duty of fetching water would prevent me from having time for homework. Sometimes I would miss school or even get to school late due to water. There was little time for revision, and I would score below average in school.”

Naetoi is happy that she now lives near a water grid, where she and her family can access clean water. She hopes that in the future, more Maasai girls will get the privilege to pursue their studies without bearing the brunt of accessing clean water. “I would like to see a day where the girls in my community don’t miss school or get to school late due to water,” she said.