Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 14(12)2017 12 16.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-29258167
ABSTRACT
Small water enterprises (SWEs) have lower capital expenditures than centralized systems, offering decentralized solutions for rural markets. This study evaluated SWEs in rural Rwanda, where nine health care facilities (HCF) owned and operated water kiosks supplying water from onsite water treatment systems (WTS). SWEs were monitored for 12 months. Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient (rs) was used to evaluate correlations between demand for kiosk water and community characteristics, and between kiosk profit and factors influencing the cost model. On average, SWEs distributed 15,300 L/month. One SWE ran at a loss, four had profit margins of ≤10% and four had profit margins of 45-75%. Factors influencing SWE performance were intermittent water supply (87% of SWE closures were due to water shortage), consumer demand (demand was high where populations already used improved water sources (rs = 0.81, p = 0.02)), price sensitivity (demand was lower where SWEs had high prices (rs = -0.65, p = 0.08)), and production cost (water utility tariffs negatively impacted SWE profits (rs = -0.52, p < 0.01)). Sustainability was more favorable in circumstances where recovery of capital expenditures was not expected, and the demand for treated water was sufficient to fund operational expenditures. Future research is needed to assess the extent to which kiosk revenue can support ongoing operational costs of WTS and kiosks both at HCF and in other contexts.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
População Rural
/
Abastecimento de Água
/
Comércio
/
Purificação da Água
Tipo de estudo:
Evaluation_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Humans
País/Região como assunto:
Africa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Int J Environ Res Public Health
Ano de publicação:
2017
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos