How a hand pump, a phone and a community are keeping water flowing across Liberia.
On a mission trip, WaterStep founder Mark Hogg watched a village lose its only hand pump. A lake sat close by, but its water was not safe, and people knew what that meant: sickness would follow. That day became the reason WaterStep exists. Fixing broken pumps stayed in the back of his mind for four decades. This program is that idea, finally made real.
A worn seal or a leaking valve. Usually a small, fixable fault.
Repair know-how and spare parts sit far from the village.
Pumps are paid for once, when they are built. Maintenance has no budget.
Left alone, a small fault turns into a pump that can't be saved.
It's expensive, and without a plan for repairs, the cycle starts again.
Meanwhile, women and girls walk further to collect water, often from sources that are not safe to drink.
hand pumps across sub-Saharan Africa are not working at any given time.
Source: Foster et al. (2019), Functionality of handpump water supplies, via Water Point Data Exchange.
WaterStep built a phone app that walks a trained person through inspecting and repairing a hand pump, step by step. Every visit leaves evidence behind, so anyone can check what was found and what was fixed.
Four guided journeys take the inspector from arrival to repair.
The app ranks the likely problems and shows how to fix each one.
Put the pump back together, with photos, and test it again.
Before and after are saved together, as evidence of the repair.
Between April and August 2026, the Liberia field team learned the app on real pumps in Bong County and Monrovia.
Each square is one pump the inspector tested on arrival.
Share of inspected pumps where the part needed attention. About 118 pumps opened up for each part.
A test on the spot turns what people remember into a fact anyone can check.
These are early figures from a team in training, as of 1 September 2026. They show what the app can capture, not final results for Liberia.
When families drink safe water from a pump, they no longer need to boil water over wood fires. Those avoided emissions can be measured, verified and sold as carbon credits. That income goes back into keeping the pumps working.
Families collect safe water close to home.
Regular inspections prove the pump works, with photos and GPS as evidence.
Verified safe water becomes credits that buyers can trust.
Credit income pays for parts and repairs, so step 1 keeps happening.
The 1 km rule. Credits count only the people who live within 1 kilometre of a working pump. That keeps the claim honest and puts the pump at the centre of the community.
The same record that guides one repair also shows Liberia where its water points are, what condition they're in and where help is needed next.
Every national water map begins with what someone sees at a water point.
The program is growing beyond hand pumps, to any community that needs safe water.
In a few years, someone who lives next to the pump will check it on their own phone, and that check will count.
Start small, build trust, then scale nationally, and to other countries.
One pump.One record.One shared picture.
Safe water can't wait. Help keep Liberia's pumps working.
