Water for Peace in Rwanda

For World Water Day, Mary Anne Herrick shares about witnessing the transformative power of water for peace and prosperity during a recent trip to Rwanda.

Water is foundational to all areas of development. It is the blue thread of integration weaving together everything — from child health and well-being to agriculture and livelihoods. While the world faces unprecedented suffering today from conflict to natural disasters and more, many global challenges can be mitigated by addressing water and sanitation development needs in communities. The fair and sustainable use of water fosters harmony, generates prosperity, and builds resilience for a more stable world.

Remarkably, just 30 years after genocide left Rwanda in pieces, the country is now making development strides and is on a path to become the first in sub-Saharan Africa to bring clean water access to everyone. Alongside government partners, World Vision has been supporting Rwanda’s rapid scale up of water access. In 2023, World Vision and the government of Rwanda celebrated achievement of universal water coverage across 39 subdistricts. To date, World Vision has helped serve 1.3 million people with clean water through our Rwanda Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Program, as well as 446 schools and 110 healthcare facilities.

Recently, I had the joy of vising this beautiful “land of 1,000 hills” for World Vision’s Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Forum. To see the impact of World Vision’s development work, we drove out to Rutare village to meet with community members and government officials.

Rutare water system serves 32,000 people

Rutare is at the top of a massive hill — more of a mountain really — which we reach after a 20-minute drive up a steep and winding mud road. Along the drive, we visit water points in the community, local school, and the health center. This enormous water system, built in partnership between World Vision and the Gicumbi district government, is fed by 12 different water sources and serves 32,000 people with clean water. It includes 13 miles of pipeline, a considerable pumping station, 76 community water points, and 6,000 household connections. The water system is sustainably managed through user fees (users pay less than 2 cents per jerrican of water) that fund a private operator to run the system and pay for repairs when needed. Community members even have a toll-free government number to call if there are any issues with delayed repairs.

Water reduces conflict and increases household livelihoods

Our first morning stop is at a community water point with two taps, where we meet Ernestine Murekaze. She looks visibly tired as she tells us about her journey to collect water before the new water system was built. She used to leave her house at 6 am to collect water in jerricans, while carrying her baby on her back. She’d trek for 1.5 hours down to the bottom of the hill and back up. There was so much competition for water at the old water point that people would fight over their place in line, and stronger men would kick the weaker women and children out of line. Ernestine, among others, would lose her place in line and have to wait until it was safe to collect water. Children who were sent to collect water took up to five hours to return home, as they were not big enough to keep their place in the water line when challenged. Because of this harrowing water trek, in the past, water at the top of the hill in Rutare was scarce.

Now with the new Rutare water system, families have water nearby, and no longer have to fight for water.  Not only is there enough water for drinking, doing dishes, cooking, and laundry, but there is enough to improve household nutrition and generate income through farming. As we walk around the village, we can see plenty of families are raising goats and cows. Ernestine now raises cows and farms vegetables, which helps provide fresh milk and food for her family, and she sells the remaining food to different schools in the area. She is also a member of a local farming group and village savings group, that World Vision helped set up, which has increased her family’s livelihood.

WASH improves quality of healthcare and education

After visiting the community water point, we stop by the local school with 2,115 students. The Rutare water system was extended to water points at the school, which they use for drinking water, handwashing, cooking, and vegetable gardening, supplying the schoolchildren with nutritious food to eat. Since children no longer need to spend so much time collecting water, they can attend classes and focus on their work without being tired from their water journey.

Next, we visit the Rutare Medicalized Health Center, an expansive complex of buildings where they do everything from family planning to deliveries, surgeries, and in-patient hospitalizations. The head doctor, Dr. Dusingizimana, shows us around and gives us a detailed presentation about the facility and the changes they have observed since benefiting from clean water through the Rutare water system, as well as newly constructed sanitation and handwashing facilities. Importantly, basic WASH interventions like these help prevent infection and the spread of disease at the health center and throughout the community. As the final slide in his presentation, Dr. Dusingizimana presents a table of outcomes showing annual reductions in cases of surgical site infections, diarrhea, intestinal parasites, and malnutrition at the health center since World Vision interventions began four years ago.

The blue thread of water weaves everything together

As we make our way back down the mountain and to Kigali, I feel a real sense of satisfaction and can’t help but smile. Everyone I met was so proud of the development work that went into Rutare over the last few years, and how far the community has progressed. They are committed to ensuring their community has water for generations to come, and to building upon these development gains to continue strengthening their community. The blue thread of water wove together Ernestine’s added time and ability to farm, the schoolchildren’s capacity to attend and focus on school, and the doctor’s acknowledgement of an overall healthier community. Water is the thread that promotes well-being and peace for community members, and I am so pleased that World Vision is weaving this blue thread into all that we do.

To learn more about World Vision's water, sanitation and hygiene work click here.

Mary Anne Herrick is the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Sr. Editorial Manager for World Vision U.S., where she manages technical communications for the sector.