Can mobile data improve rural water institutions in Africa?

April 14th, 2014

Patrick Thomson, Johanna Koehler & Dr. Rob Hope, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Institutional transformations are required if Africa is to deliver the universal Human Right to Water to the 275 million rural people currently without improved water services.1 Improving the reliability of one million handpumps that inadequately deliver drinking water to over 200 million rural Africans will be a major contribution to translating water rights into measureable results.

In 2013 Oxford University conducted a 12-month ‘smart handpump’ trial in rural Kenya which tested a new pump maintenance service model. The trial in Kyuso district in eastern Kenya, covering 66 handpumps (corresponding to around 15,000 water users, depending on season) showed that near real-time mobile-enabled data significantly improves operational performance. It also has the potential to promote financial sustainability, and is a mechanism that can enable institutional redesign of rural water services. The study was funded under the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) New and Emerging Technologies programme in response to the Government of Kenya’s demand for empirical evidence on new models to improve rural water service delivery.2 The model outlines a new and replicable framework for policy and investment behaviour: it uses the growing mobile phone network for low-cost data transfer and is informed by rural water users’ preference for a service delivery approach to rural water provision.

A ‘smart handpump’ has a transmitter securely fitted inside the handle of the pump.3 This transmitter uses an accelerometer to generate pump usage data and a GSM modem to automatically send this information via SMS over the mobile phone network. Installation is simple, enabling it to be retrofitted into existing pumps in the field or built into new pumps prior to deployment. The data transmitted from the pumps are captured in a database and presented using a visual interface. The system processes and presents data transmitted from each handpump. These data are then used to inform a management system that immediately dispatches a mechanic to repair a suspected broken pump, thereby reducing repair times. The information generated by the transmitters offers three key benefits that can promote more efficient, effective and accountable delivery of rural water services:

Measurement of handpump usage and associated volumetric water use to monitor service delivery and set water charges based on usage. Remote surveillance of maintenance service delivery and down-time to guide performance-based maintenance contracts. Objective data that can improve infrastructure planning and investment, and promote sector accountability.

Operation improvements

The study took place over the whole of 2013 in Kyuso District in eastern Kenya. The locally recruited project mechanic made 136 repairs during this period. In comparison with the existing community management system, the mobile-enabled maintenance model led to:

A fall in pump outage from a baseline mean of 27 days to fewer than three days. 89 per cent of repairs being completed within five days. 98 per cent of handpumps functioning at any one time, an order of magnitude improvement on the baseline. A handpump being over four times more likely to have been repaired within two days than under the existing system.

User preferences and willingness-to-pay for the maintenance service were surveyed during the baseline survey, and again during the trial. Focus group discussions at all 66 pumps with 630 households revealed that water users especially value the time-saving dimension of the maintenance service, which allows them to avoid collecting water from more distant, and often less safe, sources. The speed and quality of the service were valued most highly. Pre-payment, as opposed to collecting payments when a breakdown occurs is a necessary element of a sustainable rapid maintenance service. Analysis of stated willingness-to-pay in comparison to baseline figures suggested that three times as many handpump user groups would pre-pay maintenance costs on a regular basis if they were offered the service they had received during the trial. Moreover, the stated willingness-to-pay would generate five times the revenue.

The data from the transmitters would enable a fairer and more flexible payment model, based on water usage level and contingent on service delivery, rather than a crude flat fee per pump or per household. This more nuanced charging would make revenue collection more likely to match the stated willingness-to-pay. If the stated payment level did translate into actual collected revenue, this would have covered the local variable costs of running the maintenance service (labour, spares, transport and information costs) suggesting that such an information-driven maintenance service could be financially sustainable.

The case for institutional reform

While this study was limited to Kyuso District and around 15,000 water users, it does identify a new, efficient way that rural water services can be delivered across a broader scale. Information does not replace the need for an efficiently managed and well-regulated system, but enables the sector to move away from a project mentality and towards delivering sustainable services; performance based contracts based on objective metrics can contribute to the delivery of drinking water services and poverty reduction. Governments are increasingly endorsing the Human Right to Water and Sanitation within their constitutions4 and making universal drinking water access a policy goal. Therefore, there are now both opportunities and incentives to redesign rural institutions and their regulation. At a practical level, our research demonstrates the important role that monitoring tools can play in improving water service delivery, institutions and regulation, as well as driving progress towards broader policy goals.

References:

WHO/UNICEF, (2013). WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation. Data resources and estimates. Available at: http://www.wssinfo.org/data-estimates/table/. Smith School of Enterprise and Environment/DFID/Rural Focus Ltd (2014). From Rights to Results in Rural Water Services – Evidence from Kyuso, Kenya. Smith School of Enterprise and Environment Water Programme Working Paper 1, University of Oxford. Available at: http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/research/library/SSEE_Rights%20to%20Results_FINAL_March2014.pdf. Thomson P, Hope RA, Foster T, (2012). GSM-enabled remote monitoring of rural handpumps: a proof-of-concept study. J. Hydroinform. 14(4), 829-839. (doi:10.2166/hydro.2012.183) National Council for Law Reporting, (2010). The Constitution of Kenya. Available at: https://www.kenyaembassy.com/pdfs/The%20Constitution%20of%20Kenya.pdf.

Patrick Thomson is a Researcher working on the Water Programme at the Smith School. He leads the technical design and implementation of the Smart Handpump research, and is a Chartered Engineer with an MSc and MEng from the University of Oxford. He has lived and worked in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia for a number of years. Johanna Koehler is a Researcher working on the Water Programme at the Smith School. Her work examines institutional developments in rural water services in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Kenya. Johanna holds an MSc from the University of Oxford and a BA in History and International Relations from Royal Holloway, London. Dr Rob Hope is a Senior Research Fellow at the Smith School and holds a joint faculty post as a Research Lecturer in the School of Geography and the Environment. He is an economic geographer with over 10 years’ experience working in Africa and Asia on the analysis of and responses to water security risks. His research engages with enterprise including global mining, beverage, and financial service companies.

This article is based on a report titled “From Rights to Results – Evidence from Kyuso, Kenya”, the final report for a study that was funded under the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) New and Emerging Technologies programme in response to the Government of Kenya’s demand for empirical evidence of new models to improve rural water service delivery. To read the full report, please see here.

The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, or any of the institutions to which the authors are associated. Please see the Global Water Forum terms and conditions here.