A Promise Verified
The Geography of Clean Water for All in Rwanda
A Promise Made
In 2018 World Vision made an audacious commitment to the Government of Rwanda to reach one million people across 39 sub-districts with clean water by 2023. As a result, World Vision’s impact over the last five years has been nothing short of life-changing for the people living in the more than 2,000 targeted communities. Empowered by World Vision's programmatic reach, a dynamic partnership with the Rwandan government, and the passion of private donors, these communities witnessed a dramatic acceleration of clean water access that culminated in universal water coverage for all 39 sub-districts. And while there is still much to be done, this awesome achievement—and the foundational factors that made it possible—are worth celebrating and learning from. The following storymap seeks to do just that, highlighting the ingredients of a successful journey and the lessons learned along the way.
This storymap is the second in our series on the "Geography of Clean Water for All" which explores the role of geospatial data, digital tools, and catalytic partnerships as World Vision strives to reach everyone, everywhere we work with clean water. Check out the first storymap here .
Ingredients for Success
Local Empowerment
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs have been central to World Vision's mission since the organization's founding in 1950. Our WASH work entered a new era in 2010, however, with the launch of a five-year business plan that set forth a holistic strategy across 10 African countries. Now in its third cycle , the WASH business plan has expanded to more than 40 countries globally.
The hallmark of the WASH business planning process is a flexible funding model that empowers each country office to make contextualized, adaptive investments that expand reach and strengthen program quality. World Vision entrusts its national, regional, and community-level staff to identify and prioritize locally responsive WASH interventions. It is, after all, these staff that truly understand the "where" in "everywhere we work," a place-based knowledge borne of innumerable excursions across Rwanda's rolling terrain. Importantly, the confluence of flexible funding and decentralized decision-making also helps World Vision's WASH teams take advantage of strategic opportunities as they arise. Rwanda is a prime example of how successful this approach can be.
Government Partnership
Your goals are our goals.
World Vision's commitment to reach one million people with clean water was built squarely on the Rwandan Government's own vision to achieve universal water coverage. Toward this end, the government was ready and willing to invest in infrastructure and seeking strategic partners to help move the needle on clean water access. With the support of generous World Vision donors, the stage was set for a catalytic collaboration that emphasized co-investment. Following extensive negotiation, World Vision and the Rwandan Government agreed to a 60% - 40% cost-share strategy, respectively, for each new water project. The government also set aside all needed land parcels. Ultimately, the partnership was codified in a national-level memorandum of understanding (MOU) followed by 14 MOUs at the district level.
Gicumbi District was one of the first local government partnerships formalized. At right, Gicumbi Mayor Emanuel Nzabonimpa celebrates the opening of a new water system in his district. Below, engineers from World Vision and WASAC (the public utility company) inspect a new pumping station in Gicumbi. World Vision's government engagement went beyond financial cost-share alone, extending down to the nuts and bolts of engineering designs and quality assurance.
The Muhondo pumping station is the beating heart of the Kageyo Water System which serves 14,000 people in Gicumbi.
Data-Driven Programming
Tracking progress toward universal coverage requires an in-depth understanding of the geography of clean water, including the locations of existing water systems, the functionality of those systems, and the distribution of the population across the landscape. After testing multiple data collection modalities, World Vision adopted the mWater platform to map both existing as well as newly constructed water supply facilities across the targeted areas. mWater provided a streamlined data collection process accompanied by real-time, intuitive dashboards. World Vision has now pivoted to mWater use across all country WASH programs.
World Vision also used geographic information systems (GIS) to carry out supporting coverage analyses and visualizations. The combination of geo-referenced data collection in mWater and GIS-enabled analytics provided World Vision with data-driven insights on the geography of clean water. The 3D scene at right, for example, shows the expansive reach of just one of many new water systems: the Maraba-Simbi-Mbazi (MSM) Water Supply System, completed in 2023. Click the buttons below to zoom into several of the assets that collectively serve 40,000 people across Huye.
Marabi-Simbi-Mbazi Treatment Facility
Maraba-Simbi-Mbazi Main Storage Tank (100m3)
Water Point No. 79 in Ndago Village
Finally, to better visualize village settlement locations and calculate service coverage, World Vision turned to an innovative dataset developed by Meta's Data for Good (D4G) and Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). Available on the UN Humanitarian Data Exchange , the dataset uses machine learning to detect settlements from satellite imagery and then overlays population statistics. The resulting High Resolution Settlement Layer (HRSL) has been a game-changer for visualizing the geography of clean water. Use the slider in the Nyankenke Sub-District map to see this data in action, comparing water point location data only (left side) to the same data combined with settlement locations (gray pixels) and 500-meter buffers (gray circles). Can you see locations that are beyond 500 meters from a water point?
The gray pixels shown within the magnifying glass represent the location of building footprints detected in satellite images.The density of buildings combined with demographic data enables the estimation of population density.
A Promise Verified
Fueled by locally empowered decision-making, dynamic government partnerships, and data-driven insights, World Vision made steady progress toward universal access to clean water across the 39 sub-districts. With a goal of reaching at least 90% of the population with 'basic' drinking water services—defined as a protected water source within 30-minutes round-trip (generally within 500 meters)—the first sub-districts began nearing coverage targets in 2020 and 2021. To document and instill confidence in these achievements, World Vision used three verification methods: (1) water point mapping and coverage (spatial) analysis; (2) randomized household surveys; and (3) local government certifications of our fulfilled commitment. Let's visit Kigoma Sub-District in Huye to see an example where World Vision applied all three methods.
A Closer Look: Kigoma Sub-District
At just over 10,000 square miles and 14 million people, Rwanda is about the size of Massachusetts but with more than double the population. The country's high population density accompanied by ready access to elevated, freshwater springs meant that gravity-fed, piped water systems represented a viable service delivery technology option. At right are the 39 sub-districts targeted by World Vision, symbolized by the year universal water coverage was achieved. For a closer look, let's zoom down to Kigoma in the Southern Province.
Kigoma Sub-District is home to about 27,000 people. Like the previous Nyankenke map, the gray pixels seen here symbolize settlement locations across the rolling terrain that characterizes the 'land of a thousand hills.' To visualize the geography of clean water in Kigoma, let's add water point data from mWater.
World Vision mapped 190 public water points in mWater, including 58 existing facilities and 132 newly constructed facilities jointly funded with the district government. Click on any water point to view the name, facility type, administrative region, location type, implementing organization, and date mapped in mWater. To estimate coverage, however, let's add a new layer of...
...500-meter buffers around each water point, or the maximum distance that a household should be from an improved water facility according to Rwandan regulations. With this data, we can conduct an analysis of water point reach. As shown below, about 97% of Kigoma's population now lives within 500 meters of an improved water point.
Visualizing the reach of each water point into the surrounding community reminds us that every source of clean, reliable water is like...
...a point of light...a symbol of hope. Access to water can transform a life, meaning the geography of clean water is also the geography of hope.
The second verification pathway consisted of randomized household surveys. In Kigoma, for example, World Vision enumerators visited 150 households—symbolized by the purple markers here—to confirm close and convenient water access. The survey results aligned with the mapping analysis, estimating that 96% of households had basic drinking water services. Click any household icon to see collection time as reported in the survey.
In addition, in a sub-sample of the households surveyed the enumerator walked from the household to the water point to record travel time and distance. The animation below provides an illustration of this survey component, using the household and water point highlighted on the map. (Click the enlarge button to view the animation in full screen mode.)
A final verification method was the issuance of a district government certification that World Vision fulfilled the MOU terms and the broader commitment to universal water coverage. Below is the certification for Kigoma Sub-District executed by the mayor of Huye District.
Tracking Progress: A Digital Monitoring Hub
World Vision conducted water service coverage verification across the 39 sub-districts, mapping about 5,000 water points and conducting 4,501 household surveys. To help track this information, we created a data hub within mWater that brought together detailed maps visualizing coverage, survey data, and supporting documentation. The interactive dashboard below provides a summary of the hub data, including completion memos for each sub-district describing the work performed and verification method(s) used. Click on the bar chart and map to filter data and view additional details. Also, click the following link to open this dashboard in a new browser window .
Click anywhere on the embedded dashboard to interact. When viewing on a mobile phone, you must click here to open the dashboard in a new page .
The Path Ahead
World Vision remains steadfast in its commitment to the people of Rwanda. With water as a catalyst, the 39 sub-districts that achieved universal water coverage are well positioned to accelerate their development, partnering with World Vision in areas such as maternal health, hygiene behavior change, and food security. In many ways, water is the blue thread that connects multiple facets of human well-being, from better health to sustainable livelihoods to educational achievement. Ready access to clean water helps girls like Merci, for example, devote more time to learning and the realization of her long-term goal to become a doctor. Click the button below to learn more about Merci's story.
World Vision will also continue to expand our work into new sub-districts. More specifically, World Vision is now looking beyond the 39 sub-districts with universal water coverage with the addition of 26 new sub-districts (shown in orange here). Importantly, we are using the lessons learned from the last five years to support new communities and local governments in obtaining access to improved water sources within 500 meters of each home. Recognizing the pivotal role of data from our journey over the last five years, for example, World Vision will expand the use of digital data collection in each new area.
Finally, we want to be sure that the large investment we have made is sustainable for decades to come. When a water system is completed, all assets are owned by the district government who then contracts a private company to operate the system. World Vision—along with many other organizations—is doing the difficult work of strengthening the management capacity of these enterprises as well as the oversight capabilities of the government to ensure systems remain operational. This work may be less visible than infrastructure construction, but it is equally important to ensure reliable water services for all communities.
All too often in humanitarian work we witness the completion of one momentous milestone only to be immediately inundated by the next challenge ... ascending one peak only to see yet another mountain to climb. It is important, however, to pause and appreciate the view from the first peak before looking to ascend the next. Notably, that view was only possible thanks to the hard work and dedication of the staff, government, and donors who collectively reached more than 1 million people with clean water.
World Vision is committed to reaching everyone, everywhere we work with sustainable WASH services, and we continue our call to governments, partners, and donors to join us in this effort. Let’s make history by ensuring access to water and sanitation for all in our lifetime. Together, we can leverage the transformative potential of WASH to empower thriving communities across the rolling hills of Rwanda and beyond.
