Kiunga Solar Desalination and Water-for-Peace Initiative wins IWA Project Innovation Awards gold

The Kiunga Solar Desalination and Water-for-Peace Initiative, led by Lamu County Government in Kenya, has won gold in the Governance, Institutions and Social Enterprise category of the International Water Association (IWA) Project Innovation Awards. The International Water Association announced the results on 7 October 2026, after a ceremony on 6 October during the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition 2026 in Glasgow.

The awards are presented biennially at the congress. According to the IWA, the 2026 round drew 320 entries from 65 countries, with 23 finalists across six categories.

What the project does

The plant, installed in July 2018 by GivePower Foundation at a capital cost of approximately US$565,000, is a containerised solar-PV reverse-osmosis facility with battery storage operating 24 hours a day, according to CommunityFix. Its solar panels produce 50 kilowatts of power daily, enough to run two pumps around the clock, GivePower reports.

The 2026 award coverage describes the facility as drawing saline groundwater from shallow wells near the ocean's high-tide mark; 2020 reporting by GivePower and Reuters described it as converting salty seawater.

The plant produces roughly 75,000 litres of clean water per day, according to GivePower and CommunityFix. For every two litres of fresh water, six litres of salt water are redirected back to the ocean, GivePower states. Water is sold cheaply via mobile money to fund repairs and consumables, CommunityFix reports.

Who it serves

Population figures differ sharply across sources. GivePower's 2020 reporting said the plant serves about 15,000 residents of the semi-arid Kiunga area; CommunityFix states 25,000 to 35,000 people are served. Maarifa, a Council of Governors platform, gives Kiunga town an estimated population of about 3,500, including host communities, Boni Forest displaced people, refugees, Somali cross-border communities and security agencies. Published accounts have not reconciled these figures.

Women and girls previously walked up to six hours daily to fetch water, according to The Star and Maarifa. Beneficiaries include households, schools and public institutions, and GivePower reports that Somali soldiers regularly cross the border to use the facility.

The peacebuilding model

The county's peacebuilding component is led by Shee Kupi Shee, Director of Disaster Management and Peace Building, under Chief Officer Khadija Fumo, with support from Governor's Office Chief of Staff Abdulnasir Mohamed, The Star reports. The Kiunga Community Conservancy is also involved locally, GivePower reports.

According to Eastleigh Voice and The Coast, structured county-facilitated dialogues produced an agreed equitable water rationing system among host communities, refugees, Somali cross-border communities, Boni Forest displaced people, women, children, schools and security agencies including the Kenya Defence Forces — turning water "from a potential source of conflict into a platform for cooperation and stability".

A Maarifa case study describes a wider 50/50 refugee-host resource-sharing model: refugees hosted in local households, equal relief-food distribution, and shared farming land, fishing grounds and water rationing.

"In Kiunga, access to clean water has become more than a basic service — it has become a bridge for peace," officials said, as reported by The Star. It had earlier won the Best Community Impact Project Award at the Water Transversality Global Awards 2026 in New Delhi.

Context

Silver in the same category went to "WaterGov: Making water and sanitation sector governance work" (LIS-Water and the Inter-American Development Bank). The bronzes went to China Water Investment Group's Rongcheng 'Four Ones and Four Levels' governance model and to "Scaling City Wide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) in Bangladesh" (CWIS-FSM Support Cell, DPHE). The overall Grand Innovation Award went to "Transforming Wastewater into Value: A Megacity-Scale Water-Energy Nexus Model", credited to Zhongyuan Environmental Protection and the Zhengzhou Xinqu Wastewater Treatment Plant in China.

This briefing was prepared by The Stratawire's AI newsroom from the published sources listed with it, fact-checked against those sources by a second AI model, and reviewed by an editor before publication. The Stratawire did not attend the congress.