the Rulindo Challenge
This Changes Everything
In May 2010, Rulindo, Rwanda launched an ambitious plan to bring access to water and sanitation services to the entire district population. Alongside Water For People, the Ministry of Infrastructure, local leaders, partners, and donors – the Rulindo Challenge was born.
Today, we celebrate the success for over 330,000 people in Rulindo and look back on the journey that brought us here.
Your support powers this progress. Your support changes everything.
Watch The Mini-Documentary
Learn More From the Panel Discussion
Dive Into the Finances
Curious what it takes to fund the infrastructure for an initiative like the Rulindo Challenge? See how Water For People has shared the investment with the local and national government of Rwanda.
| Program Component | Total Investment (USD) | Cost Sharing (USD) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water For People | National Government | Rulindo District Government | ||
| Water Supply Infrastructure | $21.7M | $11M | $7.7M | $2.9M |
| School and Health Care Facility WASH Infrastructure | $1.4M | $1.1M | - | $0.2M |
| Total Infrastructure Cost | $23.1M | $12.1M | $7.7M | $3.1M |
Of course, building the infrastructure is only half the story when it comes to creating the system that allows these services to be provided to Everyone Forever!
Additional programmatic costs include planning and design, cost estimating, construction management, training on WASH management, operations and maintenance, commissioning of the infrastructure, community and school health initiatives, water resource management, monitoring and evaluation of the functionality of the services provided, rate setting and asset management, and general operations and administration of the Rulindo Challenge program.
Read a few FAQs
Explore questions asked by our supporters and partners. A special thank you to Perpetue Kamuyumbu, Rwanda Country Director, and Mark Duey, Director of Global Programs, for sharing their responses.
This depends on the length of the water supply system, the technology, and the population settlement patterns. Regardless of these factors, 5,000 people benefit from one water supply system on average.
– Perpetue Kamuyumbu, Water For People Rwanda Country Director
Three things come to my mind.
1) Resilient infrastructure. With the reality of climate change and so much of its impact on water resources, our engineers and government engineers are learning quickly how to build resilient infrastructure which takes into account the high probability of a natural disaster.
2) Strong District WASH Offices who understand their role in supporting service providers and have the capacity to actually do it.
3) Water quality is taken seriously – far too many projects in the countries where we work address water quality at the inauguration but after time whatever source protection measures that are needed or whatever water treatment options are built with the system are abandoned. Fortunately in Rulindo, we are confident these three things are addressed.
– Mark Duey, Water For People Director of Global Programs
The Rulindo Challenge story has gone beyond awareness with the neighboring communities to actually influence policy change. Here are a few areas that have been impacted by Rulindo Challenge achievements:
- The program successes have inspired a policy shift with the Government of Rwanda scaling up the Rulindo Challenge approach at the national level under the District Wide Approach (DWA) banner.
- In partnership with the Ministry of Infrastructure (MINIFRA), the DWA has been piloted in 5 more districts with an immediate output being WASH investment plans that are used not only as planning tools, but also as funding mobilization tools.
- DWA has been rolled out nationally, and all districts are committed to including the proper planning for WASH in their programming.
- National rural tariff structure was inspired by the Rulindo uniform tariff
- The national WASH MIS was inspired by Rulindo annual monitoring data that we have been collecting and sharing with WASH stakeholders
- Clustering of water systems was initiated in Rulindo and it has been rolled out nationally.
- In addition to WASAC, MININFRA and us, three more organizations/institutions are on board: UNICEF, WaterAid, World Vision (though not officially), and African Development Bank are have supported DWA planning process and/or its roll out in the districts they work in, and nationally.
– Perpetue Kamuyumbu, Water For People Rwanda Country Director
Rulindo has already become a great place to live, and many people relocated from neighboring sectors of the City of Kigali. This became a challenge in the past few years and called us for reinforcement of existing water networks to meet the increased demand for water.
– Perpetue Kamuyumbu, Water For People Rwanda Country Director
A new resource has been recently prepared detailing Water For People's process for entering new districts. You can read it here, published in the Resource Library of the WASH Room.
Key ingredients are setting the vision from the outset, the political will to invest not only in WASH infrastructure but also the district WASH office to ensure the service lasts, effective planning, and regular (at least annual) progress measurement and reflection.
– Mark Duey, Water For People Director of Global Programs
Extremely supportive, and the work in Rulindo has been instrumental in helping them establish their ambitious goals to achieve 100% access nationally by 2024. The level of co-finance for the Rulindo water supply infrastructure by the Ministry of Infrastructure and the District of Rulindo was many millions of dollars.
– Mark Duey, Water For People Director of Global Programs
The upfront mapping/needs assessment is absolutely critical as the first step in planning and creating the political will to invest in the vision. Then the overall commitments required and rough timelines are clear for all stakeholders.
– Mark Duey, Water For People Director of Global Programs
There have been different ways of creating community awareness and calls for action:
- Meetings with communities right from the planning phase to explain what the program is all about, and how we intend to solve the problem of water-related disease together, reliability of water supply, and role of community members
- Establishment and training of water users' committees, hygiene clubs, and committees were another way of creating community awareness and what it takes to sustain WASH services;
- District-wide WASH campaigns and reward of performing hygiene clubs proved to be great tools for positive behavior change;
- Enforcement of the WASH policies by local leaders helped in creating a positive change;
- Pro-poor programs helped several poor households to improve their purchasing power, and those that cannot pay for water are identified during community meetings and are given 40 liters of water daily, free of charge.
The above-combined approaches helped to ascertain that no one is left behind and that everyone is a great Everyone Forever ambassador.
– Perpetue Kamuyumbu, Water For People Rwanda Country Director
The policy in Rwanda is zero subsidy for sanitation. As such, we use sanitation marketing approaches where private companies are capacitated to provide sanitation services to the households, and the latter are mobilized to build adequate sanitation facilities. Although we have not committed to full sanitation coverage in the districts we work in, hygiene and sanitation campaigns conducted together with the district leadership have contributed to increased access to sanitation services in Rulindo, from 3% of households with adequate sanitation facilities in 2012 to over 60% now. This year, we are also supporting one of the commercial centers with a wastewater treatment plant to serve as a model that the district could replicate in other places.
– Perpetue Kamuyumbu, Water For People Rwanda Country Director
There are 67 water supply systems in Rulindo, of which 17, representing 25% are electricity-powered schemes.
– Perpetue Kamuyumbu, Water For People Rwanda Country Director