Rural WASH Information & Services Management System (RWIMS)

68% of Zimbabwe's population resides in rural areas where there is poor access to safe/clean water, sanitation and hygiene enabling services for households, schools, health institutions and other institutions. Our aim is to enable the real time management of geographic information on the WASH issues throught-out rural Zimbabwe to enable evidence based decision making by the government and development partners like UNICEF. In addition, we also have an SMS driven platform that enable rural citizens to report via sms free of charge when they experience issues like a community well going down or dry. The system automatically locates and informs near-by field agency who can go and assist. At present we have more than 1,800 government extension workers in 60 rural districts mapping and collecting data on every village, water point/facility, school, health institution and other institutions.

Since he country's independence in 1980 a lot of money and resources have been committed towards improving the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector of Zimbabwe particularly in rural Zimbabwe. However, 39 years on, less than 20% of the country's rural households have access to clean water and safe sanitation as specified in WHO standards. The lack of progress in this sector of development can be attributed to poorly informed decision making, misallocation of funds/resources and absence of mechanisms for real-time monitoring of and response servicing to the needs of the marginalized rural communities. 

The rural population of Zimbabwe

Our purpose is to have RWIMS instituted as a platform to provide up-to-date geographic data on rural Zimbabwe and real-time tracking and coordination of service needs, interventions and projects to improve the WASH sector in the rural parts of the country across government departments and humanitarian aid and development partners. Our primary drive is to enable delivery of meaningful aid to lead to sustainable development.