Chapter 5: delivery of clean drinking water.

SITUATION ANALYSIS/NEEDS ASSESSMENT

Less than 40 percent of people in Rwanda have access to safe drinking water (figure 5.1). Poor access to drinking water is a problem not only in rural areas but also in urban towns and cities. The total capacity production of water supply in Kigali, for instance, is about 30,000 cubic meters a day--half of what is needed.

[FIGURE 5.1 OMITTED]

Drinking water in rural areas is delivered via natural springs, water supply networks, and boreholes. According to data from 2004, of 23,000 natural springs, about 19,000 were equipped with simple infrastructures maintained by low-skilled workers. These springs served 1.9 million people. Water supply networks, mostly gravity fed and simple to maintain, with very low running costs, served another 2 million people through public taps and 17,000 through private connections. Boreholes and shallow wells made subterranean water available to 18,500 people. These figures overstate the actual number of people served, however, because about 30 percent of the water supply infrastructure is dysfunctional, requiring major repairs or rehabilitation. The population actually connected to water networks is about 2.7 million.

The water supply in Rwanda is based mainly on surface water exploitation; underground water reservoirs remain largely untapped. Lack of engineering and technical capacity is the chief reason why drilling and exploitation of underground water have not happened so far.

The aim for 2020 is to serve 11.6 million people, including 9 million through public taps fed by networks. Achieving this goal would require rehabilitating existing networks, springs, and boreholes and expanding networks. This rehabilitation and expansion work would require a major boost in the technical and managerial capacity of the water supply agencies and workers.

The sanitation goals to be achieved by 2020 are even more ambitious. The PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transfer) program is led by Compagnons Fontainiers du Rwanda (COFORWA), a local nongovernmental organization (NGO) involved in water management and training. The program has two components: a "soft" one, focusing on education on good hygiene, and a "hard" one, aimed at building three ecologic sanitation (ECOSAN) latrines per sector, for a total of 1,248 units. Hygiene education will focus on making the population aware of hygiene issues through a participatory approach that emphasizes, for example, appropriate methods of hand washing and water and sanitation hygiene. The program requires that clean water be available. The sanitation program is thus closely linked to the water coverage program.

This chapter assesses the needs of and proposes an action plan for capacity building for delivery of clean drinking water. Its recommendations must be viewed in the context of the ongoing decentralization of the water and sanitation sector. The new law transfers management of the rural water supply to the districts. The law aims to have users pay for water, with districts outsourcing infrastructure management to the private sector. A water agency is to be created to support and supervise the 30 districts in their new task of general coordination of the management of the water and sanitation infrastructures of Rwanda's 416 sectors and 2,650 cells.

RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES

Capacity building is required at the following levels:

* workers and technicians charged with equipping springs and plumbers for maintaining pipes, valves, and taps;

* low-level managers working as fee collectors, bookkeepers, and network managers (most of these networks are small and simple; some are managed by private sector entrepreneurs, others by user associations under district supervision);

* higher-level managers working in district-level water agencies;

* national-level officers in charge of coordination and support to the districts on such issues as quality control surveys and supply of equipment.

* engineers and specialists working in central and district water agencies; and

* staff of central agencies responsible for managing water supply and regulating water quality (the national water agency, the Rwanda Bureau of Standards).

Technicians, plumbers, spring workers, and tap keepers are trained at vocational training schools. Lower-level managers attend secondary schools. District- and national-level managers, engineers, and technicians attend colleges and universities.

Meeting the Millennium Development Goals and the national objectives for 2020 requires major improvements in human resources, not only for surveying and building the new networks but most of all for managing and maintaining the installations. In the framework of the proposed program, needs will be identified for the coming five years, including training of trainers and educators required to cover the growing staff needs through 2020. Capacity building will also require significant institutional strengthening (table 5.1).

TRAINING LOCAL WATER TECHNICIANS

The new decentralization law entrusts the maintenance and management of the networks to the private sector, using legal tender procedures. However, private contractors are likely to be interested only in larger schemes with treatment and pumping stations, which can generate an appreciable cash flow. Smaller and simpler networks, especially in more remote areas, will probably have to be managed by users associations on a cost-recovery basis. The average size of a network is estimated at 10 kilometers, with 10 taps and about 5,000 consumers. Association or water network managers will require training in association management to avoid the failures experienced in the past with the associative approach.

For water supply via springs, workers are needed to install, operate, and maintain the required equipment. Plumbers are needed to maintain networks, and tap keepers are needed to take care of the public taps and collect fees. Local managers are needed to supervise these workers and take charge of overall management of the infrastructure. A significant number of mechanics, treatment specialists, and other kinds of specialists will be needed (table 5.2).

Training of workers who operate spring infrastructures currently takes place at COFORWA. Established in the 1980s, this organization is based in Gitarama and technically and financially supported by a Belgian NGO under Belgian cooperation funding. Training, given to 20-30 people at a time, lasts 10 days and is given in Kinyarwanda and French; trainees receive textbooks and instruction materials. The cost of this training, which is both theoretical and practical, is about $200 per person. There is no follow-up of trainees, because of lack of means (vehicles, trainers, money) and because the clients did not request follow-up (COFORWA works on a contractual basis).

An important problem for COFORWA is that most of the trainers, particularly those for spring equipment, are senior; recruitment of young people is needed. With current facilities, COFORWA can train 70-80 trainees a month; if training could be organized at different sites, capacity could be raised to 100 trainees, which would roughly cover Rwanda's needs for the next 20 years. COFARWA would greatly benefit from new training tools, lab material, and an update of its curriculum.

Several other NGOs are potentially able to train plumbers, spring workers, accountants, managers, tap keepers, and similar workers. All of them need additional financial support and training facilities to carry out more training in rural communities, however. They also need support for preparing improved curricula, to be provided through technical assistance (see below).

TRAINING DISTRICT- AND NATIONAL-LEVEL MANAGERS

The decentralization law plans for supervision of water and sanitation at the district level by the person in charge of infrastructure. Field visits revealed that these managers often have expertise in roads or power; they are often not qualified in water supply and have even less expertise in sanitation. Managers are not aware of the number of networks or equipped springs in their districts; relevant maps or survey data are not available. Managers also lack knowledge of water quality and ways to assess it.

Management of water and sanitation in a district of about 300,000 people is a full-time job. The training needs for water and sanitation officers are thus huge. It will be necessary to upgrade knowledge of water and sanitation at the 30 district offices in charge of infrastructure, in close collaboration with the newly formed water agency. Capacity-building needs for sanitation, notably the large-scale diffusion of PHAST, include training of one trainer and three supervisors for each of the 416 sectors.

The needs for capacity building for supervision at the national level are also great. As the water agency does not yet exist, capacity will have to be built from scratch. The Rwanda Utility Regulation Agency lacks expertise in water and sanitation expertise.

No institution has the capacity to train the officers that will be in charge of the water and sanitation sector at the district and national levels. Technical assistance is proposed to specify the training needs for each district, taking account of the background of the available staff and the specific conditions of the water supply (geographic constrains, existing infrastructure and projects, scale of the networks, and so forth). Full technical assistance should be provided for the first two years before being gradually reduced. Providers of this assistance should supervise the basic training carried out by NGOs and the setting up of various activities at the national supervision level.

None of Rwanda's institutions of higher learning has a coherent curriculum in water and sanitation. Training capacity must be strengthened at three institutions of higher learning: the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Rwanda's only engineering school; the National University of Rwanda (NUR); and the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques et Environnementales (ISAE).

Building Capacity at KIST

KIST should be able to cover part of the training needs identified at the district level. It has a training program for civil engineers, but the program does not cover water management and water supply. The existing curriculum in civil engineering should therefore be reinforced with lessons on water management for rural water supply. KIST could also organize special training sessions for district officers in charge of water and sanitation. KIST could train 20-30 people in a six-month course provided outside the civil engineering curriculum.

In addition to adding water management courses to the civil engineering curriculum, KIST could also help fill expertise gaps in hydrogeology. A hydrogeology curriculum should be developed in close consultation with the needs of the water supply agencies, such as Electrogaz. Regional universities in Kenya and South Africa with programs in hydrogeology could act as partners in developing this module at KIST. The need to exploit underground water resources is too great for KIST to ignore.

KIST should also develop stronger links with the vocational training schools in charge of training in plumbing and water management, especially through in-service training arrangements for its staff and trainers. To strengthen the hands-on skills of staff and students, KIST could design a joint training program with Electrogaz leading to a certificate. Electrogaz has expressed interest in partnering with KIST to develop this joint training program.

Building Capacity at NUR

Rwanda urgently needs to build national capacity in water management for agriculture and natural resources management, in order both to develop agricultural land to improve food security and reduce poverty and to safeguard wetlands. Rwanda currently has very few trained people in the relevant fields, handicapping achievement of the targets of Vision 2020. This capacity should be achieved through both undergraduate and graduate training.

NUR should be responsible for capacity building in agricultural water resources development and management as well as irrigation and drainage, including measures to control erosion, flooding in the rainy season, and the drying up of springs and rivers in the dry season. NUR intends to set up a master's degree program in water management, irrigation, and drainage. It already has staff and facilities, but both need to be upgraded or expanded. New curricula have to be prepared and new teaching staff recruited. After a set-up phase of three years, the course could produce 20 graduates a year.

Building Capacity at ISAE

ISAE has an undergraduate training program in agriculture. Currently, the rector's office is elaborating a proposal for a two-year rural engineering course with tracks in soil engineering and water engineering. Once the program is running, it should produce 20 graduates per year.

Rural engineers work at the farm level to support farmers in improving production and natural resource management. They require skills in such fields as agronomy, livestock, land use, soil protection, water supply, and water management. To provide students with the training they need, ISAE needs to upgrade its training facilities, including its engineering workshop and laboratory for hydraulic and soil mechanics; improve its campus infrastructure, including student housing; and recruit new teaching staff for courses in water management.

Table 5.1: Recommended Capacity-Building Activities in the Water and
Sanitation Sector

                                      Type of support/institution
Activity                              providing assistance

Human resources
  Train basic workers (spring         Compagnons Fontainiers du Rwanda,
  workers, tap keepers,
  plumbers, and so forth)             vocational training centers
  Train managers of the water         Vocational training centers
  supply networks and sectors
  Train district officers in          Technical assistance, trainers,
  charge of water and sanitation      high
                                      school teachers
  Train and upgrade officers in       Technical assistance, trainers,
  charge of water and                 high
  sanitation                          school teachers
  Train water management experts      KIST, NUR
  and hydrogeology
  experts
  Provide training in sanitation      COFORWA
  (train trainers for PHAST
  program, train contractors for
  latrines, and so forth)

Institutional strengthening           Financial and technical support
  Improve efficiency of vocational    for
  training centers

  (Compagnons Fontainiers du Rwanda   curriculum development, staff
  and                                 training,
  other groups)                       and qualification standardization

  Create new department for water     Financial and technical support,
  resource                            international
  management in the faculty of        and regional partnerships
  agronomy at NUR
  Establish a diploma in rural        Financial and technical support,
  engineering (soil
  conservation and water              regional partnerships
  engineering) at ISAE
  Reinforce civil engineering         Financial and technical support,
  curriculum in KIST with             international
  water and sanitation modules;       and regional partnerships
  develop hydrogeology
  curriculum in KIST
  Provide technical assistance to     Financial and technical support
  the Ministry of Science,
  Technology and Scientific
  Research for supervision

Source: Lothe et al. 2007.

Table 5.2: Projected Number of Workers Needed to Handle Basic Water
Supply and Management Tasks

                   Existing
Type              (estimated)   2008-11   2012-20   After 2020

Spring workers        400        1,000     1,000          120
Plumbers              200        1,200     1,200          260
Tap keepers           500       10,000     7,500        1,000
Pump keepers          100          170       230           50
Managers               50          800       800          100
Mechanics              20           40        40           10

Source: Lothe et al. 2007.