Mr. Beast abandons 100 wells to break in Africa

Building is easy; keeping water flowing is what matters. With the same cost and effort, he could do so much more.

The wildly popular Youtuber Mr. Beast has built 100 water wells and joined the ranks of well-meaning foreigners trying to make a difference in Africa. The intent is great. Unfortunately, his work to build - and then leave - 100 waterpoints is likely to do little more than add to the vast scrap heap of broken infrastructure across the continent. When these wells break they will help very little.

Maintenance is what matters in the long run to keep water flowing. Infrastructure that is built and left can fail in as little as a year. A follow up in 12 months would almost certainly find that some of the children from Mr. Beast's video return to collecting unsafe water after the well breaks down.

The good news is that keeping all of these wells working is really not that difficult. Spare parts and maintenance can all be arranged. Money is needed to do this, but our work at Uptime finds the annual maintenance cost is often less than $1 per person per year. For much less than the cost of construction, Mr. Beast could make a difference for thousands of wells and many more thousands of people.

Could Mr. Beast instead ensure that drinking water flows every day for the next 10 years at, say, every school in Kenya? Probably. It's not as far-fetched as it may sound. What really matters is linking the right funding to the right results - which go beyond the first video of singing and dancing at the sight of a new well.