Safe Water Network has been active in Ghana since 2009, when it established five water systems in peri-urban areas there. Based on research that found a steep decline in household penetration based on distance from a water station, SWN began installing “remote kiosks” — additional points of sale, staffed by a single operator and connected to a community’s main purification site by pipeline.
Project objectives
- Increase safe water adoption rates in a cost-effective way by making points of sale more convenient
- Quantify the relationship between convenience and safe water consumption
Successes
- Sales roughly doubled in the first month of introducing kiosks in Dzemeni (a rural fishing village) and Pokuase (a peri-urban community). Increased levels of sales have persisted over a year in both sites
- Increase in sales occurred regardless of whether adoption rates in the area had previously been high or low
- Total system cost per liter declined by 33% in Dzemeni and 56% in Pokuase — converting the water system in the latter from unprofitable to profitable
Challenges
- Difficulty securing required quantities of source water
- Severe electricity shortages interfered with pumping
- Some kiosks were initially only served by sporadic truck delivery
