Arto Suominen Investigates the Possibilities of Property-Specific Water Supply Solutions

A lot of water has flowed through the world’s pipelines since Arto Suominen graduated with a Master of Science in Engineering in 1979. His long career in developing water supply systems for remote areas has taken him around the world: to Kenya, Ethiopia, Namibia, Vietnam, and Nepal, among others.

The goal of the Erkki Paasikivi Foundation is a world where clean water is available to all. That same goal is deeply embodied in Suominen’s life’s work.

How did Suominen become a trusted expert for the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in development cooperation projects? And what insights has he gained about Finland’s water supply systems?

In the early years of his career during the 1980s, freshly graduated civil engineer Suominen worked on tunneling projects in Finland, studied the operation of drilling machines, and designed and built bomb shelters in Iraq.

Then he heard that an engineer was needed in a Finnish development cooperation project in Kenya aimed at improving water supply in rural communities. He accepted the offer, and the experience proved to be a turning point.

“In Kenya, I had my first opportunity to work with rural communities. It captured my heart. I realized this was my calling,” Suominen says.

From Kenya, Suominen moved on to Vietnam to work on improving urban water supply, but it wasn’t for him. Next came a rural water project in Namibia’s Ambo region, where there was a severe shortage of clean drinking water. Suominen also worked in the country’s capital, Windhoek, developing rural water supply systems across Namibia and supporting the operations of the national government.

The next pivotal project for Suominen was a water supply initiative in the remote regions of Ethiopia.

“I got a phone call from Ethiopia saying there was a problem I might be able to help with. I thought it would take a couple of weeks, but it ended up taking ten years!” Suominen says with a laugh.

The problem in the region was that development cooperation projects had built water supply systems, but the communities didn’t know how to maintain them.

“One of the challenges with water supply is that the infrastructure is underground and invisible. In Ethiopia, for example, people had no idea how much money had been spent on a well or a pipeline,” Suominen explains.

“We realized it was important to think about how to strengthen the community’s sense of ownership. It’s not enough for community members to take part in building the water supply system, they should manage the funds and the construction activities themselves,” he says.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs supported the model developed through the project, in which funds were transferred directly to village communities. Trusted individuals chosen by the community handled procurement and construction from the outset, and after training, the local government ensured that everything functioned as intended.

The approach proved effective, and Suominen and his colleagues found that transferring responsibilities, funds, and procurement to the lowest possible level increased ownership and sustainability—and accelerated construction projects many times over.

By this point, Suominen had become a trusted figure for the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in development cooperation projects. The consulting firm that had hired him proposed a similar project to the Ministry in Nepal, using the experiences from Ethiopia as a foundation. After Nepal, he returned to Ethiopia, where he spent the next 11 years developing rural water supply systems and managing the project.

At the age of 71, Suominen decided it was time to retire from full-time development cooperation. However, he hasn’t remained idle. He has continued to support various organizations with water supply projects in developing countries and remains active in international water supply forums.

Suominen is also a doctoral researcher at Tampere University. His research focuses particularly on property-specific water supply systems in Finland and globally. Property-specific water supply refers to a model in which a property owner is responsible for building and maintaining their own water systems, including water extraction and wastewater treatment, at their own expense. Clean water is typically sourced from a private well. In Suominen’s view, property-specific water supply is key to achieving the goals of sustainable development.

“It’s unrealistic to think that everyone in the world could get their water from a centralized public water system. That’s not even possible in Finland,” Suominen says. In rural areas, water supply must largely be managed on a property-specific basis.

“According to Finnish law, municipalities are not obligated to provide water services to properties located outside the service area of a water utility. There is little research on how these property owners manage this essential service on their own,” Suominen explains.

“I proposed this research because I wanted to see how individual properties have solved their water supply challenges and to talk with the people about their difficulties, future prospects, and hopes. I applied for a research grant from the Erkki Paasikivi Foundation, and to my delight, I received it,” he says.

As part of his doctoral research, Suominen has been knocking on the doors of homes outside the municipal water network in the municipalities surrounding Tampere. Next, he plans to collect data in South Savo and in the northern parts of Finland.

Globally, property-specific water supply plays a significant role in the entire water sector and serves as a model example of promoting equity—after all, it brings water directly to the property or close to it, which is one of the key criteria for the clean water development goal.

“There are always marginalized individuals in communities, people with certain limitations, such as disabilities or extreme poverty. These people need property-specific water supply the most, because they also suffer the most when publicly organized water services fail,” Suominen explains.

Fittingly, Suominen titled his research No One Is Left Behind. When asked what working with clean water means to him, his answer is deeply moving.

“I have personally seen, lived, shared, and felt the genuine joy and emotion of a person who, for the first time in their life, has access to clean drinking water. It’s a profound and humbling experience—one that gives me the energy to keep going. I feel that what I have done, and continue to do, holds real societal value and significance, both in developing Finland’s water systems and in addressing global water challenges,” Suominen concludes.