Saving community water kiosks in Malawi

Water kiosks present an effective way of delivering safe drinking water to urban communities.

Credit: WaterAid / Frank Lawson

WaterAid has recently launched plans that will save community water kiosks currently under threat from closure in four unplanned settlements in the city of Lilongwe, Malawi. The aim is to safeguard the access of low-income communities to clean and affordable drinking water.

It is often inappropriate to sink wells or drill boreholes in urban and semi-urban neighbourhoods as conditions of overcrowding and poor waste disposal can lead to groundwater contamination and pollution of these sources.

Water kiosks present an effective way of delivering safe drinking water to urban communities where there is a basic domestic supply network in place. The supply network may lack the capacity to support the connection of individual households but water kiosks offer a way to dispense drinking water using existing capacity.

Collecting water from the community water kiosks in the city of Lilongwe.

Credit: WaterAid / Frank Lawson

People can collect water in containers from water kiosks which consist of a sheltered tap stand, connected to the piped network.

From a technical perspective, water kiosk projects can be easy to implement on the ground. However, they are doomed to fail in the long term unless social, managerial and political outcomes are adequately accounted for. This was unfortunately the case in Lilongwe before WaterAid and local partner organisation CCODE intervened.

The Lilongwe neighbourhoods of Mtandile, Mtsiliza, Piyasani and Chilotha have a total of 49 water kiosks in place. Historically, these were managed individually by a committee nominated by the surrounding community.

Each committee had three members who were responsible for collecting tariffs from householders using the kiosks. Each kiosk was metered and the Lilongwe Water Authority would invoice the community for kiosk water usage based on meter reading or an estimate of usage.

Arbitrary, non-transparent tariff structures and poor collection procedures led to the non-payment of bills. Some kiosks were charging a flat rate of MK100 for unlimited water usage. This rate was too high for the poor in the community and allowed relatively well off community members to divert unlimited water to their businesses.

Some powerful members of the community were illegally connected directly to the municipal supply network, meaning the responsibility for payment of their bills was passed on to the community.

Many householders who had paid kiosk committees for usage found that their sums had not been successfully passed on to the Lilongwe Water Authority.

Faced with huge losses, the Lilongwe Water Authority was unable to invest in maintenance and expansion of the existing supply network, or support existing kiosk connections. Lacking the capacity to bring management of the kiosks in-house, the water authority began to close them down.

The people most adversely affected by the resulting water shortage were the poor, old and vulnerable. The Water Authority threatened to disconnect a total of 27 kiosks which would have resulted in severe water shortage problems.

At this point, WaterAid and CCODE intervened and mediated an agreement with the Malawi Water Authority, whereby a more sustainable water management process would be implemented resulting in effective bill payment and the cancellation of kiosk disconnections.

WaterAid consulted extensively with the communities to identify problems with the existing water management process. A questionnaire was issued and a focus group was set up to verify its results. Bill payment trends were analysed to identify problem tariffing policies.

WaterAid has prepared a series of recommendations based on the findings of the study. Firstly it proposes building kiosk management capacity into the Malawi Water Authority. A designated kiosk unit, headed by a kiosk manager would co-ordinate tariffing using a transparent pricing system and would liaise directly with the communities on water management issues.

After a trial period, the unit would move out of the Lilongwe Water Authority and act as an independent interface between the water authority and the communities it serves. In the long term it is hoped that the kiosk unit will build closer links between the two parties, ensuring a long term supply of affordable drinking water.