Though Malawi has achieved and exceeded the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
water target, over half of the people in the rural areas collect water from boreholes or rivers.
In spite of boreholes qualifying as improved water sources, studies show that the drinking
water from these sources was contaminated and likely to cause disease. Other potable water
problems include long distance to collect water and gender disparity in that the majority who
collect water are women. As for hand-pumps, they are manually straining and most of them
break and are not repaired sometimes even for minor faults; which makes the people resort
to collect water from their previous contaminated water sources. Electric-powered pumps can
play a significant role in the provision of potable water either by increasing the depth of well
or by purifying water obtained from shallow wells or rivers. With no grid electricity in most of
the rural areas, vulnerability to oil prices, depletion of fossil fuels, and high maintenance cost
of diesel systems; Renewable Energy Technologies provide a viable option. A technoeconomic
feasibility study was carried out for a case study village: Nlukla Village, Chiradzulu
District in Malawi. Results show that with the favourable sunlight conditions a solar water
pumping system is a viable option for the area. The study is ongoing and future studies
include working towards addressing the issue of high initial costs and how to make the
system sustainable.