The Ubombo Family Wells Programme (UFWP) has been responsible for the construction of 500 shallow family wells in the Maputaland area of northern KwaZulu-Natal. The first wells were built in 1998, and these have been in continuous use since then. The UFWP is a response to the problem of how to develop water supplies in an area which is so remote and where the populations is so dispersed that conventional piped water supply systems cannot economically be constructed or sustained. It was inspired by the very successful Zimbabwean family wells programme, which began in 1986 and has since seen over 45 000 existing family wells upgraded at very low cost.

This paper was presented at the WISA Biennial Conference in Durban, May 2002.