RWSN Country Information

Katrina Charles, Saskia Nowicki, Michael Rouse, Sara Marks, Annabelle Edwards, Batsirai Majuru, Emdadul Hoq Chowdhury, Richard Cheruiyot, Robert Gakubia, Duncan McNicholl, and Nurul Osman

Regulation of drinking water quality is typically considered a more advanced area of water services regulation, compared to economic or service quality regulation. However, regulations are poorly differentiated to address the challenges experienced in water service delivery in rural areas, which are characterised by small water systems. Long travel distances, low recovery of user fees, and unreliable supply chains have limited rural water sustainability, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Historical project based funding in many rural areas has focused on delivery of boreholes and small improved water systems, where water safety costs may be included in the implementation phase but with limited ongoing water safety management. Developing and implementing regulations in this context has to consider the low level of resources available, both financial and capacity, and the baseline performance of the water systems. Supportive regulatory approaches are needed to build capacity and encourage iterative improvements towards the delivery of safe drinking water, including advancing water safety planning under increasingly variable conditions driven by climate change.

This discussion document by government, regulators, service providers and researchers, drawing particularly on experiences in Bangladesh, Kenya, England and Wales, highlights four principles:

1. Regulatory models must reflect that water service provision is changing
2. Scaling regulation to rural systems requires differentiated approaches
3. Regulation needs to incentivise improvement in water safety
4. Effective implementation requires building shared value

This report, produced by USAID/REAL-Water, summarizes baseline data collected in Kenya prior to the launch of a two-year impact evaluation of the Assurance Fund implementation model. This evaluation consists of a randomized stepped-wedge trial, which allows for measuring impacts rigorously while rolling out the intervention gradually. The evaluation in Kenya includes 32 piped water systems randomly assigned to one of three groups successively entering the Assurance Fund program at six-month intervals. At baseline, REAL-WATER measured the same indicators that it will measure subsequently over the course of the stepped-wedge trial: chlorine residual and E. coli concentrations in water samples (the primary outcome indicators for the trial); water treatment practices; water quality knowledge of water system operators and local government officials; consumer awareness of and perceptions of water safety; and consumer willingness-to-pay for increased water treatment and testing. REAL-WATER is also evaluating the effects of the Assurance Fund program in Ghana using a similar stepped-wedge randomized trial with 21 randomly assigned water systems.

Understanding climate processes is a crucial task for climate scientists looking to improve seasonal forecasts in the Horn of Africa, a region affected by severe droughts. The strength of the Turkana Jet – a wind feature which carries water vapour from the Indian Ocean across East Africa to Central Africa – is underestimated in current weather and climate models. New observations of the jet by researchers from the Kenya Met Department, the University of Nairobi and the University of Oxford have been used as a benchmark for UK Met Office forecasting models for East Africa. This work is providing much-needed evidence to improve current modelling and predictions, which will support policy and practice for governments and donors in the region.

In Turkana County, lack of research and data around Lodwar’s underlying aquifers, the Lodwar Alluvial Aquifer System (LAAS), has been a critical limitation to the sustainable development and management of groundwater resources. Research by the University of Nairobi is addressing these data and knowledge gaps, with groundwater quality mapping indicating areas with poor groundwater quality to inform water infrastructure investments. This work is contributing to new policy and practice to protect the Lodwar Alluvial Aquifer System and enhance resilience to climate risks.

In 2016, a results-based funding model was developed to improve the reliability of rural drinking water supply services in Kenya. The Water Services Maintenance Trust Fund (WSMTF) has tested a professional service delivery model in two counties and attracted new sources of results-based funds to guarantee water services in rural communities.

The WSMTF provides an example of how the funding gap can be met by non-donor funds in results-based contracts. In 2017, donor funds paid for 81% of WSMTF contracts, by 2021, the donor proportion had fallen to 14%. In the same period, the annual WSMTF resources increased from just under USD 50,000 to over USD 150,000.

The WSMTF has informed the work of the Uptime Catalyst Facility which has issued results-based contracts guaranteeing reliable drinking water for over 4 million rural people in 12 countries in 2023.