Finishing the Job in Rwanda
World Vision and our partners have committed to provide clean water to everyone, everywhere we work by 2030 which means reaching 50 million people across 41 countries between 2016-2030. Six years into our 15-year effort, we are on track having reached 22.5 million people. More recently, we have committed to bring some countries forward and finish the job prior to 2030. This includes Rwanda by 2023, Zambia by 2025, and Honduras by 2027. This newsletter focuses on our progress in Rwanda.
At World Vision’s recent Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Forum we shared our progress in Rwanda. This 16-minute video includes an introduction to our vision of reaching everyone by Sean Kerrigan, VP of Philanthropy for World Vision U.S. and then a fascinating hi-tech presentation by Peter Hynes from World Vision U.S. and Alice Muhimpundu of World Vision Rwanda. They show how we are using mapping technology to verify that we’re reaching everyone, everywhere we work – 1 million people with clean water between 2019 and 2023.
In the final few minutes of the video, you’ll hear from World Vision Rwandan staff and community members, including a local pastor who explains how World Vision and the church are partnering together to help people.
In our Rwanda project, we have been using three different versions of maps to help us plan and visualize our progress towards finishing the job. Each version increases in complexity – and frankly off-the-charts increasing nerd appeal with each version (count me in!).
Version 1 of this mapping exercise is shown above where you can see in stop-light colors how we are reaching everyone over 5 years. Red is very low coverage, yellow shows progress, and green is when we’ve finished the job.
Version 2 of the mapping uses high resolution satellite imagery and machine learning to create new maps showing where people live. We then send in our field teams with GPS devices to locate all the existing water points so that we can determine where to put the new water systems to ensure we reach everyone.
Version 3 provides a virtual visit to the completed areas using 3D animation of the satellite imagery. At a minimum, we urge you to watch this animation which begins 12 minutes and 20 seconds into the video.