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Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities

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...

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Autores principales: Huttinger, Alexandra, Brunson, Laura, Moe, Christine L., Roha, Kristin, Ngirimpuhwe, Providence, Mfura, Leodomir, Kayigamba, Felix, Ciza, Philbert, Dreibelbis, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5751002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29258167
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121584
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author Huttinger, Alexandra
Brunson, Laura
Moe, Christine L.
Roha, Kristin
Ngirimpuhwe, Providence
Mfura, Leodomir
Kayigamba, Felix
Ciza, Philbert
Dreibelbis, Robert
author_facet Huttinger, Alexandra
Brunson, Laura
Moe, Christine L.
Roha, Kristin
Ngirimpuhwe, Providence
Mfura, Leodomir
Kayigamba, Felix
Ciza, Philbert
Dreibelbis, Robert
author_sort Huttinger, Alexandra
collection PubMed
description 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 (r(s)) 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 (r(s) = 0.81, p = 0.02)), price sensitivity (demand was lower where SWEs had high prices (r(s) = −0.65, p = 0.08)), and production cost (water utility tariffs negatively impacted SWE profits (r(s) = −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.
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spelling pubmed-57510022018-01-10 Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities Huttinger, Alexandra Brunson, Laura Moe, Christine L. Roha, Kristin Ngirimpuhwe, Providence Mfura, Leodomir Kayigamba, Felix Ciza, Philbert Dreibelbis, Robert Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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 (r(s)) 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 (r(s) = 0.81, p = 0.02)), price sensitivity (demand was lower where SWEs had high prices (r(s) = −0.65, p = 0.08)), and production cost (water utility tariffs negatively impacted SWE profits (r(s) = −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. MDPI 2017-12-16 2017-12 /pmc/articles/PMC5751002/ /pubmed/29258167 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121584 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Huttinger, Alexandra
Brunson, Laura
Moe, Christine L.
Roha, Kristin
Ngirimpuhwe, Providence
Mfura, Leodomir
Kayigamba, Felix
Ciza, Philbert
Dreibelbis, Robert
Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities
title Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities
title_full Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities
title_fullStr Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities
title_full_unstemmed Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities
title_short Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities
title_sort small water enterprise in rural rwanda: business development and year-one performance evaluation of nine water kiosks at health care facilities
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5751002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29258167
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121584
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