Analysis of water services in Low-Income urban areas of Rwanda: Case study of Kimisagara sector

Abstract

The majority of Rwanda's focus on ensuring that every household has access to high quality water services, particularly in urban areas. Ensuring that everyone has a safe, dependable, and reasonably priced source of water. Pertaining individual household connections or in 200 meters where it not possible for home connections, with an average daily consumption of 80–100 liters. Despite this, there are still issues with water service delivery mainly regarding water accessibility and consistency of consistent water supply. In addition, the area has water supply systems that are currently unable to meet the needs of every household; due to factors like informal settlements, inability to pay capital investment costs to connect, and insufficient water supply compared to demand. The purpose of this study was to analyze water services in low-income districts of Kimisagara in Kigali City, Rwanda. Thus, 241 households was surveyed using questionnaire to identify the existing situation. Moreover, three water sample of alternative water source were assessed and tested in laboratory to assess status their quality and it was found that are not safe to drink because they do not met drinking water quality standards. Challenges include intermittent supply, a large population without water system connections, insufficient public taps, and irregular functioning of existing public taps. Those who fetch water from their neighbors pay approximately about three times higher than the standard rate, while 53.112% of respondents are freelancers without regular income. It is recommended to Prioritize given to the areas having low access to water supply. Due attention will also be given to affordability considerations to achieve equal right to access basic water services, promote delegated management through private operators, which is the key strategy to enhance the sustainability of rural water infrastructure as well as increase of public water taps based of at household level base on updated Kigali master plan