ihub - o ovr · 2015-01-30 · ihub research is the research arm of the ihub focused on conducting...

Mobile Governance:

Draft Report

January 2013

Use of mobile technology in promoting transparency issues in water governance

Authors: Hilda Moraa, iHub Research

Email: [email protected]

Albert Otieno,iHub Research


Anne Salim, iHub Research


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Contents

Executive Summary 6Introduction 9Background 11Methodology 16Demographics 20Types of information Citizens Access 23

Hindrances faced by citizens in accessing water information 32

Main source of water and quality of water 34

Hindrances facing citizens when accessing main source of water 42

Communication media 44Challenges faced by citizens when usingthe current communication media 59

Technological platforms chosen by citizens for communication and

dissemination of information 61

Who do citizens complain to whenfaced with water problems? 70

Action and feedback 74

Citizen satisfaction 74

Measures and recommendations 75

Conclusion 81

Appendices 89

References 103

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Abbreviations

CCK: Communications Commission of Kenya

WASREB: Water Services Regulatory board

USSD: Unstructured Supplementary Service Data

MIF: Makueni Investment Fund

WAG: Water Action groups

WSB: Water Supply Board

WSP: Water Service Provider

SPA: Service Provision Agreement

CBO: Community Based Organization

GSM: Global System for Mobile

SMS: Short Messaging Service

KPLC: Kenya Power & Lighting Company

GoK: Government of Kenya

MDG: Millennium Development Goal

ICT: Information Communication Technology

MWI: Ministry of Water & Irrigation

GDP: Gross Domestic Product

MNP: Mobile Network Provider

BoP: Base of Pyramid

CDF: Constituency Development Fund

SPIDER: Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions

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Preface

This report entitled “Use Of Mobile Technology In Promoting Transparency Issues In Wa-ter Governance” is part of iHub Research’s M-Governance project, launched in September 2011, that aims to evaluate how mobile phone technology can be used to improve gov-ernance in Kenya, especially in enhancing transparency through access to water informa-tion, service charters and effective communication amongst the different stakeholders.

Water is life, and despite this, a recent study conducted by the African Research Institute in two constituencies (Embakasi and Lang’ata) within Nairobi County established that it continues to be the thematic area that citizens demand right for. Therefore, our research thematically focused on water, with the aim of exploring how mobile technology can be used to promote transparency and accountability issues. This report is also aimed to cre-ate a replicable framework that can be used to study the potential of mobile phone in various sectors including education, health and infrastructure.

iHub Research is the research arm of the iHub focused on conducting high quality re-search with an emphasis on technology and its uses in Africa. Through this, we promote knowledge and high-class research as we try to support the stakeholders in implement-ing transparency, accountability, and participation of various stakeholders.

Over the last decade, many water scholars, policy makers, and donors have argued that improving water governance is a key solution to water insecurity in developing countries (Hoekstra, 2006). The World Water Vision 2000 Report went further to lay blame on bad institutions, bad governance, bad incentives, and bad allocations of resources as the root causes of the problem (Cosgrove and Rijsberman, 2000). As a tech research institution, iHub Research believes that mobile phone technology can be used to overcome much of these problems by improving communication between the various stakeholders and ensuring participation and involvement.

iHub Research

2nd Floor Bishop Magua Center, off Ngong Road

Nairobi, Kenya

http://research.ihub.co.ke

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Acknowledgements

The research study, “M-Governance,” presented herein and conducted by iHub Research, is the fruit of a lengthy period of investigation in greatly differing environments. This would not have been possible but for the participation and commitment of many individu-als who made this study become a reality.

The authors would therefore like to begin by thanking the persons working in the local water supply institutions who provided us with the required information, Eng. Otieno On-gowo (MIKUTRA), Kiambu Water & Sewerage Company, Nyasare Water Services, Kathon-zweni Borehole project, and Mburu Borehole Service Ltd.

The collaborative and relentless efforts of the research assistants and the “gatekeepers” in gathering data need not to go unnoticed; we thank you for the vital role you played.

Special thanks to go to the SPIDER and Ford foundation for the funding of this project.

The entire iHub team we thank you for the encouragement that you gave to us during the period of this study.

Finally, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the respondents for their will-ingness and availability.

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Executive Summary

Many developing countries are faced with numerous challenges, poverty being one of the problems. It is a stumbling block to development of any economy in the world; Kenya has not been left out either. The Government of Kenya (GoK) has however been under-taking a series of reforms aimed at enhancing quality, efficiency and transparency in service delivery by public sector institutions in an effort to alleviate poverty. There are opportunities through Kenya’s current development framework, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Vision 2030, which aims at transforming Kenya into a newly industri-alized middle-income country providing a high quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030. The elimination of poverty is pegged on improved access to water supply and ap-propriate sanitation whose achievement is hinged on good governance, accountability and transparency.

This report details our M-Governance study, which aimed to understand the use of mobile technology in promoting transparency issues in water governance. The report targets mobile developers, water sector specialists, key stakeholders involved in policy-making, regulation and water service development and provision in Kenya drawn from the gov-ernment sector, civil society organizations, academia and the media.

The methodology used involved literature review, development of study framework tools, mapping, field data collection and analysis. The study covered urban and rural areas of the three counties (Kiambu, Migori, and Makueni) in Kenya. In-depth interviews were con-ducted with a total of 896 people and key informant discussions with five stakeholders in the water sector in the three counties in Kenya.

Key Findings

The following are key findings from the study:

a) Main Source of water; a quarter of respondents reported that their main source of water was piped water in their plots. This was followed by 22% who relied on lake/river/ponds or streams as their source of water. 15% depended on protected dug well or spring. The minorities of the surveyed respondents relied on sources such as tankers or trucks from vendors (8%), Piped water in their houses (7%), public taps (7%), unprotected dug wells (6%), and harvested rainwater (2%). Having continuous supply of water from citizens’ main sources is very important as they rely on these sources for survival. Limited access to their main sources in both the rural and urban areas can lead to poor quality in the form of intermittent

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water supply.

b) Access to Information on water; Access to water information is still a huge gap faced by citizens. Only 26% of the interviewed citizens have access to water information leaving almost three-quarters with no access to any kind to water information. Out of the population with no access to any kind of water information, the majority are from the rural areas (73%)

c) Kind of Information currently accessed by the citizens; in rural areas, of those with water information, the majority (35%) currently access water availability updates from informal groups such as water vendor. Most urban residents (32%) have access to information on government water projects.

d) Information citizens would like to access; topping the list of what citizens want to be informed on is how to treat and make water safe for consumption (31%), where to get clean water (29%) and water rationing schedules (14%).

e) Hindrances in accessing water related information; The majority of respondents (50% and 44% in urban and rural respectively) reported that no one sends them the updates on water information. This stood out as a big challenge due to the fact that citizens are not aware of where to find the water information/updates or whose responsibility it is to inform citizens about water information.

f) Communication channels; phone calls are the most common means through which respondents communicate with their loved ones, business partners and workmates. Hardly a week comes to pass without a phone call being made; in fact 86% of respondents make calls on a daily basis. SMS seconds the list with 77% of respondents sending SMS as a way of communicating (Makueni 85%, Kiambu 76%, and Migori 71%). Unfamiliar to most people is the Internet with 23% of the survey participants browsing the Internet.

g) Best technological platform; over half of the respondents interviewed (51%) believe that SMS would be the best platform for communication between the citizens and the various stakeholders in the water sector. This is indeed true regardless of the age or gender. The catch in use of SMS is pegged on its effectiveness and convenience, 44% of the respondents believe that SMS is convenient and effective to use as compared to other platforms.

h) Reasons as to why citizens suffer in silence; 61% of the respondents had faced challenges while trying to access water and were not able to complain to any one about the problems affecting them. The study affirmatively learned that lack of understanding on whom or where to complain was the major reason as to why most respondents do not complain. 1% of respondents complained that the people to complain to are too far away.

i) Citizen participation; there is no equitable representation in Kenya’s water decision-making process. The women and youth are not well represented, 19% of females participate in water decision-making compared to 24% of male respondents and

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18% of the youth. This could be attributed to the fact that the citizens still have a limited understanding of the full range of their roles and responsibilities as rights holders in the water sector. In the long run, this will limit citizens’ effective and meaningful participation in improvement and development of water sector.

Based on these key facts, it is clear that citizen participation and inclusion remains a big challenge in many parts of the country. It is essential that champions of information be identified in each and every part of the country to help educate the citizens on their roles in governance and provide citizens with other necessary information. Technology can play a potential role in ensuring effective communication in accessing information on water.

A guaranteed feedback mechanism and reduced costs of accessing or disseminating in-formation would be a motivating factor to the citizens when it comes to the use of mobile technology in water governance.

Key words: Governance, Transparency, Accountability, Mobile Devices, Kenya

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The Kenyan government just like many other governments in the world has given a con-siderable attention to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) as a means of improving the delivery of government services. Enhanced communication capa-bility provides the prospect of distance-independent delivery of service, and particularly the capacity to improve the delivery to rural and remote locations. Prior to this study, we hosted a governance workshop at iHub Research that brought together governance stakeholders from academia, government, civil society and the technology community. The purpose of the workshop, entitled, “The Potential of Technology on Water Govern-ance in Kenya,” was to identify important issues within Kenyan governance structures, especially looking at different stakeholder roles and relationships. The workshop also explored areas where technology may be able to facilitate and potentially enhance good governance.

Introduction

A young boy in Uriri constituency (Migori County) fetching drinking water. Source: iHub Research, 2012.

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From the workshop, it was clearly understood that technology is a potential enabler com-ponent in water governance. It was not however clear how much Kenyan citizens have embraced technology use within water governance and why they have not embraced it. In Kenya, water is a problem that cuts across the border (both rural and urban dwell-ers face the problems) and the problems are not limited to water supply and sanitation services (USAID 2010). Earlier study done by Huduma in Lang’ata and Embakasi constitu-encies showed that majority of people demanded rights on water-related issues. Water issues are worsened when citizens have no clue on who/where they can get information regarding their problems. Our Mobile-Governance survey therefore aimed at evaluating water-related problems facing the citizens, type of information the citizens would need, and lastly the platform they would like to access or disseminate water related issues.

http://www.huduma.info/

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Effective water governance goes beyond ensuring that policies and institutions are in place and rather captures issues of access to resources, information and affordable technology while participating in the decision making process that affects the manage-ment and effectiveness of service provision (UNDP, 2007). Water governance entails the upholding of policies, strategies and legislation where water service providers have to develop and manage water resources in an effective and efficient manner while being accountable to the recipients of the water services (Ibid). This ultimately means that for governance in the water sector to work in a mutually beneficial way, citizens need to be aware of their rights, and also need to be accorded a mechanism where they can com-municate when they feel that their rights are not being fully met.

Kenya is limited by a renewable fresh water supply of only 647 cubic meters per capita and is classified as a water scarce country (Momanyi & Lee, 2005 & MOW Strategic Plan, 2009). The country therefore faces serious challenges with regards to protection of wa-ter resources and provision of water supply and sanitation services.

Water supply and service delivery in Kenya is largely affected by lack of integrity and low performance of water utilities and informal water service providers. The urban and rural poor often have no way to advocate for their basic needs for water and sanitation be-cause their problems are invisible to higher levels of planning and policy making. Funders together with Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) often do not have the resources to track continued functioning of their projects once they are built and handed over to communities. Water utilities and governments often lack information on the specific needs of the populations they serve, and are not held accountable for planning and budgeting decisions. This could be due to the lack in-formation on the state of water resources—both in terms of water quantity and quality. In the absence of a “single water manager,” there is no one place for information to be collected or shared in ways that can promote better management of water supply and over-extraction results (mWASH 2012).

Management of water resources in Kenya

The Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) is officially the key institution responsible for the water sector in Kenya. It is divided into five departments: Administration and Support Services, Water Services, Water Resources Management, Irrigation, Drainage and Water Storage, and Land Reclamation. Water supply is overseen by the Department for Wa-ter Services, whose functions include formulation of policy and strategies for water and sewerage services, sector co-ordination and monitoring of other water services institu-

Background

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tions. The Ministry of Water and Irrigation is also in charge of overall sector investments, planning and resource mobilization. Water Services Boards are mandated the responsi-bility for water and sanitation service provision. The Boards in turn commission private water vendors to provide water services. In Kenya, this task is delegated to commercial public enterprises called Water Service Providers (WSPs). WSPs are regulated by Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB), whose functions also comprise of issuing licenses, developing of tariff guidelines, setting standards, and developing guidelines for service provision.

Available Water Information

The water information available for citizens is dependent on the organization providing the service. Most of the water information available is on websites owned by parastatals of the government of Kenya, or private water companies. The biggest concern has been if the available information is sufficient to promote transparency to citizens and other stakeholders concerned in accessing the water information to make decisions.

Examples of publicly availed water information include: W

• Ministry of Water and Irrigation - The Ministry website contains policy documents including the strategic plan of the ministry with regards to the water sector, speeches made by the minister, assistant minister and permanent secretary in the ministry, water projects that the government is investing in including the budget and progress of the project, as well as information on the various departments in the ministry in-charge of the water departments is also available on the website.

• Nairobi City Water and Sewarage Company - A water service provider charged with the provision of the water and sewerage services in Nairobi, the Nairobi Water Company provides a wide array of information to citizens and stakeholders. From the company’s website, one can get contact details for where to make payments for water services rendered, read press statements from the company when water supply has been interrupted, get tips on water quality, water treatment procedures as well as download a variety of forms where they can fill in to register for water services, lodge complaints as well as find out more on water tariffs.

• WASREB (Water Services Regulatory Board) - As the water body in the country that licenses WSPs to provide water services, WASREB publishes policy guidelines on its website, which includes policy guidelines, service provision agreements, water service regulations, corporate governance guidelines among other policy documents. WASREB also continues to publish annual impact reports, which they also print out in booklets and disseminate around the country.

http://www.water.go.ke/

http://www.water.go.ke/

http://www.nairobiwater.co.ke/

http://www.wasreb.go.ke/

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It is important to note that the information provided on the different websites can also be accessed when citizens visit the offices of this organization where citizens are given handouts, reports or verbally addressed the information they require.

Challenges in Accessing Water Information

The greatest challenges in accessing water information stem from a lack of political will and corruption, which forces citizens to pay bribes to connect to water pipes or tankers, helps to inflate the cost of needed small-scale infrastructure and diverts irrigated water away from villages, leads to biased decisions on the location and allocation of water sup-plies, water waste treatment facilities, service points and pipe systems (Baseline Report on water governance-HBRA). There is still limited coverage of water and sanitation ser-vices in underserved parts of the country like informal settlements, and rural areas. This often means dilapidated infrastructure, low financing and inadequate capacities of water sector institutions. This has resulted in few locations where citizens can get access to water information (MOW Strategic Plan, 2009). The fact that there is limited information on cost and technological improvements to enhance the water sector investments has resulted in limited participation by third parties with the option for them to redress when there are complaints (TISDA National Water Integrity Study 2011).

Due to the challenges faced in the water sector, water utilities, vendors and consumers have seen the need to use technology to come up with applications and services that can ease these problems. The technological applications built provide services such a billing, complaints management, information provision regarding where to access water and oth-ers are used to monitor transparency and corruption-related issues in the water sector. Examples of such applications include M-Maji, MajiVoice, MajiData, and Huduma.

ICTs in the Water Sector

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are pegged to enhance access to information on water and related issues. Reports written by different NGOs and CSOs indicate that several software applications (mobile, web, stand-alone) have been devel-oped to solve water issues (mWASH, June 2012). Collecting, aggregating, and analyzing data from remote regions and making the data available in a transparent way can help identify where investments are most urgently needed and can improve the long-term project monitoring.

Although many people lack access to safe water for consumption in Kenya, the latest Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) report indicates that mobile penetration in the country is high, with a mobile subscriber base currently over 29 million, representing over 70% of the population. The report further indicates that 99% of those who access the Internet do so through their mobile phones. These statistics present an opportunity

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for different stakeholders in the water sector to consider using mobile tools as a means to communicate crucial water-related information to citizens. (CCK, Q4 2012)

Gaps in water applications

iHub Research reported (2012) that 20 applications exist in Kenya to solve citizen issues in the water sector. A key observation from this report was 9 out of the 20 discovered applications have not scaled. The key reasons indicated for failure to scale included:

• Lack of funding to sustain the duration it takes to build the project;

• Lack of support from partners during the building of the water application;

• Lack of buy-in from Government who are heavily involved in working with grassroot. Government could offer support in strategic planning, partnering with the entrepreneurs or forming policies that encourage use of ICTs in the water sector.

Key things like forming partnerships with organizations on the ground tackling water is-sues and government agencies in the same sector are necessary for users to be encour-aged to continually use the ICT applications built. Stakeholders like media should also be encouraged to push stories related to technology use in tackling water issues to enhance awareness amongst citizens.

In April 2012, the mWASH report released by Nexleaf Analytics looked into the techni-cal specifications for designing mobile systems that could be used by citizens to pass on water information. The report focused on issues such as:

Questions that continue to come up when studying mobile applications designed for citi-zens to tackle water issues are as follows:

• Why are citizens not using technology tools actively to access water related information?;

• What kind of information is being transferred from these tools?;

Figure 1: Success factors in mobile phone solution design mWASH report April 2012

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• What kind of relevant information would citizens and other relevant stakeholders prefer to access on water?;

• Which means would citizens like to use to access that information?.

With these questions in mind, iHub Research initiated a study to find out the gaps of users with regards to access to water information and how can technology be used stra-tegically to enable transparency.

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Methodology

This section outlines the methodology used in the study that resulted in the findings and conclusions. A cross-sectional study was conducted in three counties in Kenya (Kiambu, Migori and Makueni). Data from the sites was collected using both qualitative and quan-titative approaches through structured and semi-structured questionnaires designated for both the citizens (consumers) and the stakeholders in the water sector. This report is the first part of the larger reporting series that we intend to release; this report focuses on technology and transparency. The next report will focus on communication and deci-sion making process, the third report will discuss the roles of stakeholders’ in the water governance structure, and the last will be an aggregated summary report.

Research objectives

The main objective of the study was to explore the role of mobile technology in promot-ing transparency in water governance in Kenya. However, this objective was further nar-rowed down to specific aims as follows:

I) To investigate the type of water information citizens desire;

II) To understand the gaps faced by different stakeholders in accessing water information;

III) To identify the technology platform that citizens and stakeholders would prefer for receiving and sending water information;

IV) To evaluate how mobile phone technology can be used as a tool for improving the gaps faced by the different stakeholders in the access of water.

Research Design

Design of a study is the end result of a series of decisions made by the researcher con-cerning how the study was conducted (Burns and Grove 1997:225). A descriptive survey was employed in this study. Surveys are conducted for the general purpose of obtaining information about opinion, attitudes, practices and other characteristics of people (Knapp 1998:67).

Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to obtain data from the stake-holders in the water sector and the general citizens at large by use of structured and

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Figure 2: a map showing the 3 counties geography on the map. That is Kiambu, Makueni and Migori

semi-structured questionnaires. Medina (2003:43) observes that by combining the two techniques, social scientists balance the strengths and weaknesses of the two and will achieve a higher degree of reliability and validity, compared with the use of only one. The questionnaires were translated to Kiswahili and so interviews were conducted in both English and Kiswahili. In some instances, the researchers were compelled to use the lo-cal language so as capture those who could not understand English language or Swahili.

Systematic random sampling was employed to select the participants where every 5th household was chosen after a random start. The rationale for using qualitative approach was to explore and describe the citizens’ experiences on governance, transparency and accountability; their thoughts on the current platforms used to relay information, the challenges involved in receiving/sending information based on the platforms currently used and the future prospects of the mobile technology.

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The Study Areas

The study employed a cross-sectional survey approach in three Kenyan counties that is, Kiambu County, Migori County, and Makueni County. The county facts are discussed be-low. Based on past studies, observation and feedback from past water governance work-shops conducted by iHub Research it remained clear that the 3 chosen areas were still heavily untapped. There was need to understand the huge water challenges faced by citizens on the ground that end up affecting the development of the 3 counties in return.

Migori County

Located in Southwestern Kenya, Migori County has a population of 917,170 and an an-nual population growth of 3.05% (Census 2009). It is a county that is predominantly oc-cupied by low-income households, with 43% of the population living below the poverty line. It has five constituencies namely Rongo, Migori, Nyatike, Uriri and Kuria. Majority (66%) of population live in rural areas as the population consists of more females than males, i.e. 52% females and 48% males.

Age distribution:

• 0-14 years 49%

• 15-34 years 34%

• 35-64 years 14%

• Over 65 years 3%

It is surrounded by an agriculturally rich hinterland with large-scale sugar industry while other economic activities include fishing and mining. The accessibility of water services is below the national average despite being supplied with rivers (Kuja and Migori rivers) and its close proximity to the world’s second largest fresh water lake (Lake Victoria). In fact, only 47.8% of the population has access to clean improved water (Census 2009).

Makueni County

With a population of 884,527 and an annual population growth of 2.8%, Makueni County is located in the southern part of Kenya’s Eastern province. Similar to Migori County, the population is predominated by rural dwellers (88.2% are rural dwellers) and consists of 51% females and 49% males. A larger section of the population is considered low-income earners, with 67% of the rural and 34% of the urban populations living below the pov-erty lines. The county suffers prolonged droughts from time to time. In fact, according to Makueni Investment Forum (MIF), water management has been identified as the major investment opportunity in the region. Approximately 56.9% of the population has access

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to clean improved water. In terms of political representation, Makueni County has five constituencies i.e. Kilome, Mbooni, Kibwezi, Kaiti, and Makueni.

Age distribution

• 0-14 years 43.7%

• 15-64 years 51.1%

• 64 + years 5.2%

The economic activities are subsistence agriculture (Maize and fruit agriculture) in low-land zones, beekeeping, and limited coffee growing in the highland zones.

Kiambu County

Kiambu is located in Central Kenya and close to Nairobi County (capital city of Kenya). The county has a population of 1,623,282 and an annual population growth of 2.56%. Unlike Migori and Makueni, Kiambu is predominantly urban (60.8% of the population is urban and 39.2% of the population is rural). However, there is no much disparity in population by gender with 51% female and 49% male.

Age distribution:

• 0-14 years 34.5%

• 15-64 years 61.9%

• 65+ years 3.6%

Access to clean improved water is approximated to be 78.1% of the population, rating it at position 7 out of 47 counties in the country. The county boasts of good climatic condi-tions that support much of agricultural activities such as tea and coffee farming, dairy and poultry farming and horticulture.

Sample size

The study aimed at having representative data drawn from the three counties in Kenya. The sample size chosen was therefore consistent with the recommendations for deter-mining size of a random representative sample (Medina, 2003).

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Table 1: Sample Size

County Constituency Deliverables by data collection

Citizens Stakeholders

Achieved Targeted Achieved Targeted

Kiambu Kiambaa 127

Kikuyu 63

Limuru 63

Githunguri 44

Subtotal 297 300 2 2

Migori Awendo 61

Rongo 65

Kuria 50

Migori 53

Uriri 64


Makueni Makueni 273

Kibwezi 33


Total 896 900 5 6

Results & Findings

1.0 Demographics

The study aimed to have a 50:50 gender representation, however more female were encountered during the random sampling and hence more female took part in the survey. This is because in the field sites, the researchers encountered many female in the house-holds compared to male who probably had gone out for work and other different chores. Among those interviewed, 54% were female and 46% were male respondents.

In terms of age distribution, the majority of the respondents interviewed (36%) were aged between 18-29 years old, while 2% of those interviewed were aged above 70 years old. In summary, 81% of those who took part in the study were less than 50 years old, while 19% were aged more than 50 years old. More of the older respondents (both male

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Figure 3: Age versus Gender and Area of interview Cross tabulation

and female respondents) were encountered in rural areas than in the urban; this could probably mean that urban is more populated with the youths than the rural areas. In fact, almost twice the percent of those aged above 50 years old were interviewed in rural areas than in urban set ups. In both the rural and urban areas, most of the female respondents interviewed were dominated by the youths, however the number was much higher in urban than in the rural.

Area of interviewGender

Male Female Total

UrbanAge

Less than 50 yrs. Old 86.2% 90.2% 88.3%

Over 50 yrs. Old 13.8% 9.8% 11.7%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

UrbanAge

Less than 50 yrs. Old 76.2% 81.5% 79.1%

Over 50 yrs. Old 23.8% 18.5% 20.9%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

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The respondents’ education level ranged from no formal education to having completed Bachelor’s degrees. Out of 896 research participants, half (448) had completed second-ary. Those who had completed primary education formed the largest group of partici-pants for both Migori and Makueni (37% and 53% respectively). However for Kiambu County, those who had completed secondary education formed the largest (40%) group of participants. This could be attributed to the fact that Kiambu is predominated by ur-ban dwellers (60.8%) living in some of the well-developed towns in Kenya and its close proximity to Nairobi (the capital city of Kenya) could also be a factor to reckon. Migori on the other hand had the highest number of participants (16%) with no formal education compared to 4% for the Kiambu and 6% for the Makueni.

According to the county fact sheet given by Commission on Revenue Allocation, 17.3% of the population in Kiambu county have secondary education ranking the county at position 5, 10.3% of the population in Migori county have secondary education ranking the county at position 32, while 14.75% of the population in Makueni county have secondary educa-tion ranking the county at position 10 out the 47 counties. What do these figures mean? Is education a big issue in the rural areas compared to the urban? As already mentioned Kiambu County is surrounded with well-developed town with good infrastructures. This could be an attributing factor since good infrastructure means conducive environment for learning.

Figure 4: A bar graph showing age of the respondents

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1.1 Geographical location

Most participants interviewed (61%) dwell in their own house across the three counties. Kiambu however, had the largest group of participants (49%) who dwell in rented houses. This can be explained by the fact that Kiambu is currently developing at a faster rate and is seen as a future anchor to the capital city Nairobi. 1% of respondents dwell in either company houses, police houses or live with their parents in own houses.

2.0 Types of information citizens’ access

Access to water information is still a huge gap faced by citizens. Only an average of 26% of the interviewed citizens have access to water information leaving an average of 74% with no access to any kind to water information. Out of the population with no access to any kind of water information, 73% are from the rural, mostly in Makueni County, followed by Kiambu, then Migori. Despite the fact that Kiambu has more developed constituencies, it is still faced with high rates of inaccessibility to water information.

The government of Kenya has also invested heavily in initiatives to foster and make pub-lic government data accessible and transparent to the people of Kenya. More so, the Gov-ernment has worked to improve public resources, accountability and public participation in the areas of sensitive issues such as water and sanitation. The information on water

Figure 5: A bar graph showing respondent’s dwellings based on counties

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on the open government site includes: reports largely on sanitation by District and cen-sus on households. The available information is not the most updated as the most recent data sets are for 2009. Recently, Information and Communication Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo told the Sunday Nation that the ministry was getting frustrated because of the low amount of data supplied by organizations. “There is no reason at all why any-one should hold on to information and claim to own it. Even university research papers should be dispatched as public information to help improve lives of Kenyans and aid plan-ning. This will also improve performance of the open learning initiative,” said Dr Ndemo.

These are still low amounts of data in the different governance thematic areas, water being one of them that has limited supply of information. Most of the ministries are still working to digitize their information, hence the low supply of transparent information that can be accessed by citizens from a single portal. There is therefore need to explore on more transparent instruments and tools to allow citizens both urban and rural to view actionable data in the water sector.

Equality of access to data also needs to be ensured. The concept that all persons both men and women have equal rights of access to water-related information. It was positive to note that both men and women that were interviewed and had access to water infor-mation, they were at 26% each. Of the respondents who reported had not access to any kind of water information, both men and women were at 74%.

However, it was interesting to note that the youth and younger population interviewed that were less than 50 years old had slightly higher inaccessibility rates (75%) compared to the people who were above 50 years old had lesser inaccessibility (68%).

Education is key in helping citizens understand and become aware of where they can ac-cess information. Shockingly, of the 74% of respondents who said they have no access to any kind of water information, 76% also have no access to formal education. The same trend was seen with respondents who have primary education had higher inaccessibility rates compared to the ones who had post primary education.

Public education and awareness remains an important milestone towards promoting transparency and openness of public information in order to eliminate the myriad digital divide implications and create a social and economic well being through reliable, available and actionable information.

2.1 Types of water information citizens currently have access to

Reliable information on access to safe water is not available. Even if the information is available currently citizens can only access a pinch of it or the information is outdated.

Rural access to information:

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The majority of interviewed citizens in the rural areas (35%) have access to water avail-ability updates from the informal groups such as water vendors. This was followed by ac-cess to other information such as water treatment, preservation, conservation and water related diseases at 31%. This is then followed closely by access to information on water projects by government and water supply services in that county at 20%.

Sadly, access to water price information at 12% and complains raised on water issues at 3 %, were information not readily accessible to the citizens in the rural areas. It is the mandate of the water service providers to ensure tariff schedule is accessible to citi-zens. Most important maintain affordable tariffs to maximize efficiencies in the provision of water services and provide satisfaction and safety of water consumers by acting as agents to escalating their complains to higher boards such as WASREB.

Only 5% mentioned that they received invitations to give opinions on water issues in their area. Another 2% from the rural area did not know what kind of information they had ever accessed; this can be explained due to ignorance traits portrayed by some of the household members.

Urban access to information:

On the other hand, the accessibility of the same water information greatly varied in the urban settings. Here majority of the citizens (32%) had access to information on water government projects, followed by information on water supply services in their region at 26%. the other kind of information that was greatly accessible at 25% included water treatment, preservation, conservation and water related diseases. Water price informa-tion and complains raised were also not transparent and accessible information to the ur-ban respondents as reported at 7% and 8% respectively. None of the urban respondents reported that they did not know what kind of information they currently access; this was a positive finding as it shows the majorities in the urban communities know that infor-mation exists. However, accessibility of the information is limited due to factors such as digital divide, public awareness and tools to access the information.

The data on access to safe water supply in Kenya as reported by different sources are not consistent, but according to the WHO/UNICEF (2010), urban coverage has been declining in recent years whereas rural coverage is increasing.

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County Area of interview

Kiambu Migori Makueni Urban Rural Total

Government water projects in the re-gion

18% 29% 27% 32% 20% 23%

Prices of water in the region 18% 1% 10% 7% 12% 11%

Water availability updates (e.g. from vendors)

51% 10% 17% 24% 35% 32%

Invitation to give opinion on water is-sues in the area

3% 4% 14% 8% 5% 6%

Water supply services in the region 19% 17% 35% 26% 20% 22%

Complaints raised on water 1% 6% 6% 8% 3% 4%

Other information accessed 18% 57% 22% 25% 31% 30%

I don't know 0% 5% 0% 0% 2% 2%

Percentages and totals are based on respondents.

a. Dichotomy group tabulated at value 1.

Table 2: What kind of information do you currently access?

Equal access to water information is essential for democracy and good governance. How-ever the kinds of information accessed by the citizens at times differ based on gender, age, region and literacy levels. The study established that despite different informa-tion being accessed by different group of people, an equal percent of men and women currently have access to water availability updates, especially from the water vendors. However, surprisingly almost triple the number of male citizens compared to the female citizens had the information inviting them to give opinion on water issues in their area. Does this mean women are not interested in giving opinion on water issues or they are just ignored? This is a major concern bearing in mind that democracy entails treating each and every citizen with equality without any bias or prejudice.

On the other hand, more female respondents (13%) against 9% of the male respondents currently access information on water prices in the region. This could be attributed to the fact that female respondents are more involved in the household chores and feel the pinch when the source is depleted therefore being more concerned on the cost of acquir-ing more.

Other information that includes water treatment, preservation, conservation and water related diseases is another major concern for both men and women, 31% of the male and 29% of the female respondents currently access information regarding this.

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The number of males accessing government water projects in the region and those ac-cessing information on water complaints raised is also higher than that of the female respondents. This shows that male respondents follow up on activities more than the female respondents.

It seems literacy levels dictate the kind of information currently accessed by the citizens; respondents who have no formal education had mostly access to other kind of water information that included water treatment, preservation, conservation and water related diseases. On the other hand, the citizens with a primary (O level) education had access to mostly information on water availability updates, which was accessible through informal groups such as water vendors. The respondents with more than primary level of edu-cation had more access to variety of water information and were mainly affected with information related to invitations to give their opinions in water issues in their areas and complaints raised on water.

Even though water is a problem that cuts across the country, some issues are unique to a given particular area so different areas may be interested with unique information differ-ent from other areas. For instance, the study established that most of the rural residents (35%) currently access updates on water availability may be from water vendors. Most of the rural areas are prone to water scarcity, e.g. most parts of Makueni County, and so many are really interested to be informed about water availability. Most rural areas rely on stream/river water that is not treated. This probably tells the reason as to why the second in the list among information accessed by rural residents (31%) is other informa-tion on water treatment, preservation, conservation and water related diseases.

Figure3: Information currently accessed by the citizens

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2.2 Types of water information citizens would like to access

Citizens would like to be informed and educated on water information that they feel is missing or is not adequately accessible. Majority of citizen respondents (31%) reported they would like to access information on how to treat and make water safe for consump-tion. In the world today, close to 1 billion people still drink water collected directly from streams, lakes and shallow, hand-dug wells, while hundreds of millions more drink con-taminated water from unsafe municipal systems or borehole wells. In recent years, de-centralized solutions for water treatment at the point of collection or use, combined with education to improve water handling, storage, and hygiene practices, provide many of the health benefits of piped, treated water at far less cost and in far less time. Many waterborne diseases are capable of causing explosive and highly fatal epidemics. This is particularly true in the absence of early detection and intervention (CDC, July 2012).

Surprisingly, more respondents in the urban settings (34%) compared to the rural at 29% want to access more information regarding water treatment for human consumption. This was a surprise, due to the fact that majority of the rural residents interviewed (25%) compared to the urban residents (14%) relied on unprotected sources such as surface

Table3 : What kind of information do you currently access?

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water from ponds, lakes, rivers and ponds. These sources are usually not treated and if not properly maintained leads to water borne diseases and sanitation issues. Hence it was expected that most of the rural residents would actually be interested in getting access to information regarding water treatment as they were most likely to be affected due to the consumption from unprotected source.

29% respondents wanted to get informed on where to get clean water. Here more rural citizens (29%) would like to be informed on this issue compared to the 27% in urban area. This can be explained by the limited access to safe water in the rural areas. Diarrhea and cholera rates are at its peak in these areas like Makueni and Machakos. Citizens rely on unsafe sources of water such as surface water, harvested rainwater among others.

An average of 14% wanted to be informed on information on water rationing or short-ages. Here more urban respondents (19%) wanted to be informed on this issue compared to the rural at 12%. Kenya is recently experiencing acute water shortages resulting to water rationing among water users, increased prices and corruption. Especially in the urban areas, population growth rate continue to increase, with no plans to increase the supply of water. Citizens are not investing in proper conservation methods and a culture of proactive planning needs to be nurtured.

13% of respondents wanted to know more about the water projects in their regions to be able to actively participate. More rural respondents at 14% expressed concern com-pared to the urban respondents at 8%. The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) has of late financed water supply system rehabilitation in consultation with other stakehold-ers. The water projects conducted by the CDF have made significant improvements to the livelihoods of the rural communities. About 320 projects were conducted under the Community Development Fund (CDF) project from 2001-2008. Despite the positive pro-gress, there is need for more citizens to participate and be informed on the projects in their regions. There have been disputes on funds misuse, unfair cash distribution, project construction delays and unfair dismissal of CDF staff at respective constituency levels.

Other information like water news, water related diseases, water charges/bills and where to raise water complains were equally expressed as important information that both the rural and urban respondents desired to be informed about. 10% of respondents did not want to be informed on any water information and 1% did not know what they wanted to be informed about. This can be attributed to the fact that they were ignorant or did not bother whether the information was available or not.

Women (32%) seem to be most affected when it comes to lack of information on water treatment to make it safe for consumption compared to men (29%). This might be attrib-uted to the fact that women are responsible for taking care of the household members by ensuring safe and clean water for drinking, laundry and storage. More so, children and mothers are at high risk to infectious diseases and poor nutrition.

Each year, many children and women die as a result of a lack of access to clean drinking water and poor sanitation. Many combinable diseases and many of the poverty related

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diseases spread as a result of inadequate access to clean drinking water. According to UNICEF, 3,000 children die every day worldwide due to contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation. Although the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of people who did not have access to clean water by 2015 was reached five years ahead of schedule in 2010, there are still 783 million people who rely on unimproved water sources.

Men were most keen to be informed about where to get clean water (31%) compared to women (27%). This finding can be explained further as men are mostly responsible in the transportation and distribution of the water to their homes.

More men than women wanted to be informed on information on water related diseases and progress on complains raised. However, more women 14% were interested to know more about projects in their region, compared to 12% of the men who were interested in the same subject. More women were reported they would not want to be informed on anything with regards to water information compared to men.

An equal 1% of men and women each did not know what they wanted to be informed about. There is need to educate more women in society on decent health issues, water storage and conversation techniques. It also makes a lot of sense to educate the women as together with the children they bear the burden of water collection walking miles to the nearest source, which is unprotected and likely to make them sick (UNDP 2008).

Despite the positive move of government water institutions and private firms such as Nairobi Water Company availing various water information on their websites, there is still more to be done. Lack of information on water safety (quality) and where to get clean water (quantity) tops the list as profound problems. As water scarcity problem keeps growing, sanitation problems will definitely continue to increase affecting the social sta-bility in return.

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Table 4 : What would you like to access or be informed of regarding water?

Gender

Male Female Total

Rationing of water 18% 10% 14%

Any valuable news 6% 7% 7%

How to treat and make water safe for consump-tion

29% 32% 31%

Information on water related diseases 14% 8% 11%

Water projects in the region 12% 14% 13%

Progress on complains raised 1% 0% 1%

None 8% 12% 10%

Where to get clean water 31% 27% 29%

Where to raise complains on water issues 2% 3% 2%

Water charges 4% 4% 4%

I don't know 1% 1% 1%

Percentages and totals are based on respondents. a. Group

2.3 Knowledge & Access to Service Charters

A service charter is a high level document, endorsed at senior level, which briefly and clearly states the generic standard of service that any customer or user can expect from the organization, presented within the context of the Department’s Service philosophy. It is likely to contain the mission statement and make reference to the organization’s culture, vision, values and ethical policy.

A recent baseline study conducted by Water and Livelihood Reform Network (WLRN, June 2012) in Nairobi and Mombasa noted that 91.9% of the Mombasa respondents and 95.8% of the Nairobi respondents do not know what a service charter is. Of the respond-ents who know what a charter is, only 3.5% of the Nairobi respondents and 9.1% of the Mombasa respondents have seen a service charter of their water service providers. The same views were mirrored in this field research. As 86% of the respondents neither did not know or were aware of what service charters neither were about nor heard about them. On the other side of the coin, only 14% had heard of them but still were not sure what the document entailed. Find a sample citizen service charter for Rift Valley Water Service Board in Appendices.

The public sector needs to provide service charters and make them accessible and simple for the document to be understood by citizens. Kenya’s Vision 2030 hopes to provide these service charters in every ministry. The service charters will act as a statement

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2.4 Hindrances faced by citizens in accessing water information

There is a growing local challenge in access to water information. Citizens continue to place increasing demands on access to water information on related issues. A majority of respondents (50% and 44% in urban and rural respectively), reported that no one sends them the updates on water information. This stood out as a big challenge. This was greatly noted as due to the fact that citizens are not aware of where to find the water information/updates or whose responsibility it is.

A majority of the survey respondents in the rural area (33%) did not know where to find water related updates compared to the urban respondents (31%). There is need to em-power both the rural and urban citizens with tools that are reachable for them to access available water information.

Ignorance is still a big disease when it comes to citizens taking initiative to find the in-formation by themselves. An average of 24% of respondents from rural and urban did not seem to be keen or concerned about the water updates or had no time to look for updates.

Other hindrances faced by citizens on accessing water related information include a feel-ing that the government customer care is far from reach especially in the rural commu-nities. While the government of Kenya is concerned about the rapid population growth, there is need for them to provide sustained information, support and education for rural development. Learning, research, disseminating, and policy advocacy are integral to the empowerment process of the rural communities.

of commitment by the various service providers to provide quality and up-to-standard services to citizens. There is therefore need to create awareness of these strategies and educate the citizens what they entail and how they can measure the performance of the service delivery of the providers.

Figure 6: Knowledge of service charters

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Women (33%) are still facing challenges of knowing where to get water updates com-pared to men (31%). Less women are concerned about the water updates compared to the men despite the fact that more women have heard about the updates. There is need to educate women on importance of having the water information and they should be keen to find time to learn more about information related to hygiene, water treatment and storage besides their usual household chores.



I don't know where to get updates 28% 45% 29% 31% 33% 32%

No one gives/sends us the updates 46% 23% 62% 50% 44% 45%

I have never heard about updates on water

6% 4% 1% 4% 4% 4%

The government is far so no one cares about us

3% 16% 2% 2% 7% 6%

I have never been keen/concerned about the updates

16% 12% 4% 12% 12% 12%

I have no time to look for the updates 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Gender Age Total

Male FemaleLess than

50yrsMore than

50yrs

I don't know where to get updates 31% 33% 30% 41% 32%

No one gives/sends us the updates 48% 44% 49% 32% 45%

I have never heard about updates on water

5% 4% 4% 5% 4%

The government is far so no one cares about us

6% 5% 5% 7% 6%

I have never been keen/concerned about the updates

10% 13% 11% 14% 12%

I have no time to look for the updates 1% 1% 1% 0% 1%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table 5: What hinders you from accessing information on water related issues?

Table 6: What hinders you from getting information on water related issues?

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A majority of the respondents who had low literacy levels either did not have time to look for the water updates or were not concerned about the water updates. Citizens who were most hindered by lack of knowledge on where to get water updates were those with no formal education (47%). Nevertheless, even those who had post primary education, were still not able to get or receive the updates on water. The lack of education has also contributed to the citizens not being aware of where to find the water updates and most expressed that the government is too far from their reach.

2.5 Main source of water and quality of water

The quality and reliability of a water supply service is an important factor for the im-provement of the population’s health. Ideally, the whole community should be served efficiently and effectively. However, the water supply service in rural areas often has limited coverage and/or low continuity. This means that much of the population has to resort to other sources of water and/or to store water in the household to cover their basic needs once their main source of water runs out. Both of these measures can result in the deterioration of the water quality and the consequent exposure of consumers to communicable water-related diseases.

A quarter of respondents reported that their main source of water was piped water in their plots. This was followed by 22% who relied on lake/river/ponds or streams as their

Figure 7: What hinders you from getting information on water related issues?

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source of water. 15% depended on protected dug well or spring. The minorities of the surveyed respondents relied on sources such as tankers or trucks from vendors (8%), piped water in their houses (7%), public taps (7%), unprotected dug wells (6%) and har-vested rainwater (2%).

Rural areas perform consistently worse than urban areas. A quarter of rural respondents sources their water mainly from surface sources such as lakes, rivers, ponds and streams, compared to the urban community (14%) that relies on the same sources. Rural communi-ties continue to be vulnerable to problems associated with poor quality water. This is due to their main sources are mainly associated with dirty water and sometimes scarcity is an issue that makes it difficult to improve water supply. Water in lakes, rivers and ponds are usually not treated and if not properly maintained and stored leads to water borne diseases and sanitation issues.

Sources from piped water in plots is mostly relied upon by the urban community (31%) compared to the rural (23%). This might be attributed to the fact that in most rural areas the respondents stay in their own houses rather than rental houses where resources are shared. In addition, this can also be attributed to the fact that most of the rural commu-nity rely on grounded sources such as wells, springs (16%) compared to the urban that rely on the same source (14%). In urban areas, a larger fraction of households have ac-cess to piped water.

In rural areas, access to improved water sources is low. It has only gradually increased

% within County County

What is your main source of water? Kiambu Migori Makueni Total

Lake/River/Pond /Streams 4% 40% 37% 22%

Piped water in plot 47% 5% 6% 25%

Borehole with pump 10% 5% 6% 7%

Harvested rain water 4% 1% 2% 3%

Tankers/Trucks/Vendors 4% 3% 19% 8%

Piped water in the house 11% 3% 3% 7%

Public taps 5% 2% 19% 7%

Protected dug well/spring 12% 28% 5% 15%

Unprotected dug well/spring 3% 13% 3% 6%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table 8: What is your main source of water? * County Cross tabulation

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over time at a rate of approximately 1 percentage point per year. In service agreements used for urban areas, acceptable coverage is defined as at least 80% of the population having access to adequate drinking water. Good coverage is defined as at least 90% hav-ing access. If these criteria are used and applied to the optimistic estimate for access to water in rural areas (Fact 1), it will take another 30 years until acceptable coverage is achieved in rural areas, and another 40 years for good coverage to be reached (Uwazi Report, 2012).

Many citizens in Kenya rely on their main source of water for long periods of time. This was reflected when majority of the respondents at 57% reported they have been using their main source of water for a period of more than one year. This was followed by 33% of the respondents who said they have used their main source of water for their entire lifetime. This was especially in the rural areas where they rely on ground and surface sources, such as lakes, boreholes and dug wells.

11% of respondents have been using their main source of water for a period of 1-12 months, this might be because they depend on more than one main source of water or change of environment and climate can affect their options, that they end up relying on new main sources of water due to resources, capacity and infrastructure in that region.

% within Area of interview Area of interview Total

What is your main source of water? Urban Rural

Lake/River/Pond/Streams 14% 25% 22%

Piped water in plot 31% 23% 25%

Borehole with pump 4% 9% 7%

Harvested rain water 1% 2% 2%

Tankers/Trucks/Vendors 11% 6% 8%

Piped water in the house 13% 4% 7%

Public taps 7% 8% 7%

Protected dug well/spring 14% 16% 15%

Unprotected dug well/spring 4% 6% 6%

Total 100% 100% 100%

Table 9: What is your main source of water?

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In Kenya, every citizen has a right to water. The National Water Strategy commits to en-suring that all people, including the poor are covered by the formal water supply system. Millions of Kenyans are currently underserved and too many citizens continue to drink unsafe water, or are forced to use minimal quantities of water as distance, waiting times, and cost make water inaccessible. Inequities in access to water are glaring and the strug-gle for water by the excluded sections of Kenya’s population contrasts sharply with the privileged, who benefit from water delivered to their homes, often at very low prices (Uwazi, 2010).

The problem of distance has made it almost impossible for citizens to access the wa-ter, especially in the rural areas. An average of 32% of the respondents said they have to travel a distance of 1-100 metres away to reach their main source of water. These sources are mainly ground sources or piped water from their houses. Another 15% have to travel between 101-500 metres to look for their main source of water, which may be linked to ground and public taps. 12% trek for a distance of 501-1000 metres to look for this precious commodity while another 12% reported they walk a distance of more than one kilometer away to get their main source of water from surface sources. It was hard for others to measure the average distance they travel, but it’s for sure that the distance from the main source of water is still a huge problem in ensuring accessibility and con-tinuous supply of water.

The rural respondents (15%) who walk a distances of more than one kilometer to find access to their main source are the most affected with distance and water scarcity prob-lems. Not forgetting that most of the rural areas, e.g. parts of Makueni and Migori, are filled with dry and semi-arid areas with poor infrastructure to the main sources of water.

Table 10: What is your main source of water?


How long been using? Kiambu Migori Makueni Total

Less than a month ago 1% 1% 1% 1%

Between 1-3 months ago 3% 0% 7% 3%



More than a year ago 73% 30% 54% 57%

Entire of my life 13% 67% 30% 33%

I don't know 1% 0% 0% 0%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

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The urban communities are mostly saved from the long distances as most of them (34%) have the main sources of water in their residence or close by. This can be attributed to the fact that they stay in rented houses where there are shared resources and capacity to deliver their water. Even when the urban residents have to trek to look for water they don’t spend long distances compared to the rural communities as most only walk a dis-tance of between 1-100 metres away and only 14% walk for more than one kilometer.

Construction of sewerage facilities lags very much behind with the consequence that many urban areas have drainage and sewer problems and surface water is being polluted by the discharge of untreated wastewater. A growing problem is the steady degradation of catchments areas, which is becoming a threat to several surface water sources. Simi-larly, groundwater sources are at risk in several areas due to uncontrolled abstraction by individuals.

Quality of water:

The quality of water continues to affect both the rural and urban communities. Mostly the rural communities are affected with high levels of unsafe water services. As of March 2010, the assessment of water quality in Kenya was based on two basic indicators. The first indicator provides information on the percentage of drinking water quality tests car-ried out by Water Service Providers. The second indicator measures the level of compli-ance with residual chlorine standards: WASREB published official Drinking Water Guide-lines, so it is expected that future impact reports will provide more accurate data.

Figure 8: How far away is your main water source from your place of residence?

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It is the responsibility of the WSB to improve access and quality of water to also stimu-late the WSPs under their control to ensure the water services progressively improves. This process is supervised by the WASREB who has the obligation to report annually on progress.

Access to informal service providers has increased, as newcomers to the city that were not able to get a connection depend on such informal providers. Households that were earlier connected have also partly turned to these informal providers often as a comple-mentary source. In some of the study areas, it was found that some connections have been abandoned completely by users either for not being able to pay the bill or because of low or no service provision (National Integrity Study, 2012).

It is clear that rural residents are somehow disadvantaged when it comes to access to clean and quality water. Comparing rural and urban set ups, about 48% of the rural resi-dents use water that is considered to be of bad quality against 39% of the urban dwell-ers. This probably tells the reason as to why majority of rural dwellers would prefer being informed on how to treat water and related diseases that come with use of dirty water. Only 52% of the rural residents said to be using water that is clean and of good quality, while 61% of the urban said to be getting clean and good quality water. This is a big dis-parity, considering that the Constitution of Kenya advocates that each and every citizen has a right to access of clean and good quality water regardless of place where one is coming from.

Figure 9 :In your opinion, what is the quality of water that you get? (Area of Interview)

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The kind water used by some residents of Makueni County

Residents of Makueni county are more disadvantaged than their counterparts in Kiambu or Migori counties when it comes to access to clean and improved water. 34% of the Makueni dwellers stated the quality of water they use as of poor quality, a number al-most four times that of Kiambu and twice that of Migori County. While only a few Migori residents stated to be getting poor quality water, things are not good for them as well with only 37% having access to clean and improved water. On the other hand, most of Ki-ambu residents (72%) enjoy clean and good quality water. As earlier mentioned, Kiambu county is predominated by urban dwellers. These findings therefore further confirm that urban residents are more advantaged in terms of access to clean and improved water as compared to rural dwellers. Data from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) based on 2009 census shows that 78.1% of the Kiambu county residents have access to clean and improved water.

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Figure 10 : In your opinion, what is the quality of water that you get? (Counties)

Access to clean water:

It is worth noting that more than half of the interviewed population (57%) did not know where to get clean water when their dependent/main source of water ran out. On the other hand, only an average of 43% knew where to go to as they mostly approached informal groups such as water vendors and pushcarts in their region.

51% of respondents mentioned they do not have water vendors in their areas. The lack of water vendors was mainly in Kiambu and Makueni areas. This can be attributed to the fact that existing legislation, particularly the Water Act 2002 initiated an important reform process that has considerably helped revolutionize the water sector. However, the new constitution is now in place and the act has now to be realigned to fit with the provisions of the new constitution. Key outstanding aspects of the Water Act that are yet to be implemented include transfer of assets from the municipalities to the Water Boards, which is yet to be concluded, inadequate independence in terms of capacity of the regulator to enable it to play its crucial role as an independent monitor, and the bur-den of having many users. A complaint heard frequently from the WSPs is that the WSBs are slow in finalizing the SPAs and that the agreements vary slightly from the models as provided by WASREB (National Water Integrity Study 2012).

There is need for increased and licensed capacity of water vendors especially in the rural settings where the majorities of the respondents reported they have no information on where to find clean water once their main source has run out. According to Transparency

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International’s National Water Integrity study, there should be more legislation covering publishing service contracts and licenses and improving the benchmarking system be-sides adding incentives.

2.6 Hindrances facing citizens while accessing main source of water

Citizens continue to face challenges while trying to access their main source of water. These challenges included:

Water shortages:

This challenge came out strongly with 33% respondents reporting that they failed to get water for a couple of weeks from their main sources such as piped water from their houses or public taps. This can be attributed to the fact that an average of 30% were faced by lack of continuous water supply from their main sources, especially in Makueni where they relied heavily on lakes, rivers and was hard to find water vendors in the re-gion due to the poor infrastructure and catchment areas. The lack of continuous water supply can be linked to distance, waiting time and affordability and high water scarcity rates in Kenya.

Dirty water supply:

Due to the poor quality and water scarcity, an average of 30% respondents received or bought dirty water for a couple of weeks. This water was unsafe for drinking and con-sumption in their households. Especially in Migori, more than half, 55% of the interviewed participants were faced with this challenge. Rural water supply is not well organized and faces a lot of challenges. According to an assessment report carried out in 2009, there are 43 sewerage systems in Kenya and wastewater treatment plants in 15 towns (total population served: 900,000 inhabitants). The operation capacity of these wastewater treatment plants is estimated at around 16% of design capacity. The main reasons for this inefficiency are: inadequate operation and maintenance and low connection rate to sewers.

Price exploitation by water vendors:

When the main source of water runs out, 16% respondent households rely on water ven-dors who take advantage and hike their prices. This was mostly experienced in Makueni (25%). These vendors’ prices currently range between Ksh 5 and Ksh 10 per 20 Liter plastic jerrycan, which amounts to between Ksh 250/m3 and Ksh 500/m3. This makes the cost over 26 times higher than the regulation rate of Ksh 18.71/m3 for domestic con-sumers, as published by Athi Water Service Board in their current water tariff structure.

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Hiked water charges/bills:

Citizens continue to be bombarded by hiked water bills from the water service providers. This was mostly experienced in Kiambu, where 12% reported they frequently received bills that they did not relate with and did not understand as their consumption is low or sometimes the water shortages are high to receive high bills. City residents connected to piped water are charged using the published tariff structure. This large disparity in water prices with Nairobi’s poor paying an exorbitant price that aggravates their already precarious economic circumstances is attributed to many factors. A report by Birongo and Quyen Le on water governance in Kibera points to corruption in the relevant public and private institutions as one of the major contributory factors.

Long distances:

The distance to the main source of water and the time taken to fetch water is another key challenge faced by the citizens. A quarter of the participants interviewed in the three counties cried of the distance, with majority of the victims affected by this menace com-ing from Migori and Makueni counties, areas predominated by rural dwellers. Residents are at times compelled to walk for as long as several kilometres in such of water, this affects the amount one can fetch and time to do other activities is also greatly affected. The long distances to collect water mean that the aged and physically challenged have limited access. “The distance from here to the nearest source of water is about 2 hours walk and just look at me, do you think I can walk?” posed an old lady from Makueni Coun-ty. This means recycling the little available water, which is a health hazard to the family and entire community.

Figure 11 : In your opinion, what is the quality of water that you get? (Counties)

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When we asked the respondents the last time they faced the stated challenge, 52% had experienced the challenge less than a month ago. Another group of respondents (21%) had experienced the challenges between 1-6 months ago. This was mainly in the rural areas where the problem persisted for long without any action being done.

Some of the respondents faced the challenges for longer periods between 7-12 months and 1-5 years (7% and 5% respectively). Another 12% said they had faced the challenges for more than 5 years, where nothing has been done about it. An important problem is that access to safe water supply and sanitation varies greatly from region to region and poorer population groups are clearly in the most a disadvantaged position. This group relies on shared water points often at considerable distance paying higher prices and spending more time in water collection or buying from intermediaries, which pushes the price further up.

The lack of resources and consequent inability to address the increasing demands on water and sanitation systems throughout the urban and peri-urban areas will not only threaten the viability of cities and towns as a whole, but could transform even relatively viable urban areas into slums,” warned the HFG report.

To achieve the MDGs in the water and sanitation by 2015, a massive investment will be needed, which is estimated at KShs 236.878 billion (US$ 3.0 billion / 4.7% of 2009 GDP). This is estimated on the basis of the interventions proposed under the Millennium Project Model which includes the provision of (a) water supply access through household connections, public stand posts, boreholes with hand pumps, rainwater collection (roof catchments), and protected dug wells; and (b) sanitation access through conventional sewerage, septic tank, pour flush toilet, ventilated improved pit latrine, and improved pit latrine (www.unmillenniumproject.org, 2010).

3.0 Communication media

Communication is a core element to society’s foundation; it is a way through which we get to know what is taking place around us. Communication is used in families, amongst friends, in schools, at work place, in business deals and in government. The advancement of technology has helped to advance the ways in which we communicate with each other in our day-to-day encounters. The study therefore aimed at exploring and understanding the current communication media used by the citizens, cost of using the current com-munication media and the challenges involved in the use of the communication media (channels).

3.1 Current communication media used by citizens

Despite the fact that we are in the information age where Information and Communica-tion Technologies (ICTs) play an important role in our daily lives, many still use face-to-face communication to access information on water in their localities. 57% of the re-

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spondents interviewed stated face-to-face as their mode of communication in accessing water related information. The blame cannot however be leveled on the citizens alone since out of five stakeholders (water suppliers) interviewed in the survey, four stated us-ing word of mouth (“barazas” and meetings) as a way of providing information to citizens.

Traditional media seconds the list of the channel that citizens use to access information on water; 36% of the respondents interviewed across the three counties said to be rely-ing on television and radio. An equal number of people interviewed (6%) said to be using either SMS or phone calls and very few (1%) use Internet to get information on water. This shows that either people are not conversant with the use of technology or do not realize the possible information to be gained through the use of IT.

Figure 12: Communication medium currently used by citizens

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3.2 Phone call communication

Phone calls have become the norm of communication in many parts of the country. With an estimated 29.7 million subscribers countrywide and a 75.4% penetration (CCK, Q3 2012), it is evident many have recognized and appreciated technology in the communica-tion sector.

The study established that phone calls are the most common means through which re-spondents communicate with their loved ones, business partners and workmates. Hardly a week comes to pass without a phone call being made; in fact most calls (86%) are made on a daily basis. This shows how crucial mobile phones are especially in the communica-tion sector. In regard to area of interview, a greater percent of respondents (92%) make calls on a daily basis in urban areas compared to the rural areas. Urban folks tend to be busy especially at work throughout the day thus phone calls become the most conveni-ent tool to relay information to friends and relatives who are far.

Reduction in call rates could also be an attributing factor in the increase in the frequency of calls made. There has been reduction in call costs by between 50%-85% from 2008 and as a result mobile penetration has risen from 43.6% in 2008 to about 70% in 2011. This drastic change has as well come along with variation in call patterns and frequency of phone calls made by the citizens. Many people tend to make frequent calls due to the reduced call rates that are much lower than before.

Figure 13 : Mobile penetration and prices in Kenya

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Figure9: Frequency of calls made

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The study went further to identify the pattern of communication among the different age groups and gender. Majority of both male and female respondents interviewed make calls on a daily basis, likewise to the respondents aged less than 50 years and those aged more than 50 years of age. However, there was a slight difference in call pattern among the different age groups, more respondents (87%) aged less than 50 years old make calls on a daily basis compared to those (78%) aged more than 50 years old. The youth bracket falls between 18-35 years old, the above figures therefore clearly shows that the youths are the largest group that makes calls.

% within Gender Gender Age Total

How often Male FemaleLess than

50yrs

More than

50yrs

Daily 89% 83% 87% 78% 86%

5-6 times a week 4% 5% 4% 9% 5%

2-4 times a week 7% 10% 8% 10% 9%

Weekly 0% 1% 0% 1% 1%

Fortnightly 0% 0% 0% 1% 0%

Monthly 0% 0% 0% 1% 0%

I can't tell/don't know 0% 0% 0% 1% 0%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table16: How often do you make calls * Gender & Age Cross tabulation

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Figure 14: How often do you make calls * Highest education level Cross tabulation

Education can affect how people communicate with each other; it is an essential compo-nent for raising public awareness and improving the capacity of people to understand as well as appreciate issues and problems (UNESCO, 2003) and this study confirmed this; communication pattern was found to vary among the respondents with different educa-tion qualifications. Despite lack of formal education, people are still able to make calls.

However, there are those who rely on help from others to enable them make calls. One respondent aged 63 years old from Migori County had this to say, “when I want to make a call, I give my grandson to dial for me the number and my work is to talk,” so with or without skills to operate the phone, people still maneuver ways of communicating by all means through community efforts. It is also important to note that daily communication increases as one progresses to the next level of education. 70% of respondents with no formal education made calls daily, 84% of respondents with primary education said to be making calls on a daily basis while 84% of those with post primary education said to be making calls daily.

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More urbanites receive calls daily compared to their counterparts in the rural areas. This could be attributed to the fact that most people in urban areas leave for work early and come back home late so there is probably no time to meet with people they would want to communicate with; phone becomes the next available better option for communica-tion.

Table18: How often do you receive calls


How Often Kiambu Migori Makueni Urban Rural Total

Daily 89% 85% 94% 94% 88% 89%

5-6 times a week 4% 9% 2% 4% 5% 5%

2-4 times a week 6% 6% 1% 2% 6% 5%

Weekly 0% 0% 1% 0% 0% 0%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Over 90% of the calls are received between 5-6 times a week or more for the different groups of respondents interviewed. Just like the case of making calls, the same pattern was observed when it comes to receiving call; most of the young respondents are proac-tive and therefore frequently make and receive calls compared to the older people inter-viewed in the survey. 92% of those aged less than 50 years of age receive calls on a daily basis while 77% of those aged above 50 years old receive calls on a daily basis.

Gender Age Total


50yrsMore than

50yrs

Daily 91% 88% 92% 77% 89%

5-6 times a week 4% 5% 4% 8% 5%

2-4 times a week 4% 6% 3% 12% 5%


Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table19: How often do you receive calls * Gender & Age Cross tabulation

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The more learned one is, the more he/she makes and receives calls on a daily basis; this is according to the study done in the three counties. 69% of the respondents interviewed who had no formal education said to be receiving calls on a daily basis, 88% of those who had attained primary education receive calls on a daily basis while 94% of those who possessed post primary education said to be receiving calls daily. This could be linked to the large network of colleagues and friends that an individual makes as he/she pro-gresses to the next level and therefore needs to get in touch. The kind of environment one is in may also result to demand for communication. We can therefore not rule out its influence on the calls made in a day by individuals.

3.2.1 Phone call costs

In Kenya, mobile phones have become more of a basic need than a luxury; it is the com-munication platform for most people in various parts of the country. People use their phone to make calls, send SMS, play games, download songs/videos, and browse the Internet and much more. To achieve this, some even sacrifice some of their basic needs such as meals, transport fare (iHub, 2012) in order to have airtime credit for their phones. These sacrifice makers usually do so because they anticipate making more money by having airtime (e.g. making a phone call to find a job that will bring in additional money).

According to this M-Gov study, 45% of the respondents spend between 101-500 Kenya shillings a week in order to make calls. Most of the rural dwellers (47%) said to be spend-ing less than Ksh. 100 per week while most of their counterparts in urban areas (54%) spend between 101-500 Kenya shillings in a week. About 12% of the respondents said to be parting away with over five hundred Kenya shillings for the calls they make in a week.

According to research conducted by Youth Dynamix, the biggest portion of income of many Kenyans especially the youths is through mobile phone airtime; this shows how necessary mobile phones are to the country’s population.

Table20: How much do you spend to make calls in a week


How Often Kiambu Migori Makueni Urban Rural Total

Less than Ksh. 100 45% 38% 38% 29% 47% 42%

Ksh. 101-500 41% 43% 57% 54% 42% 45%

Ksh. 501-1000 10% 14% 4% 12% 8% 9%

More than Ksh. 1000 2% 5% 1% 4% 2% 3%

I don't know 2% 0% 0% 1% 1% 1%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

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Male respondents spent more money than the female respondents to make phone calls. Despite having a slight difference in daily call frequency made by the male and female re-spondents (87% and 83% respectively), there was a large discrepancy in terms of spend-ing between the two groups. 16% of the male respondents said to spend over 500 Kenya shillings in a week to make calls compared to 9% (about half of the male respondents) of the female respondents.

As mobile penetration increases across the developing world, the entry of mobile phones in the hands of women causes reactions in many rural settings. The men are often the ones with full ownership and usage of the mobile devise leaving the woman with less capability to interact with the mobile phone to communicate. Mobile phone in the hands of more women can help empower women in a myriad of ways: economic gains, increased access to information, greater autonomy and social empowerment, and a greater sense of security and safety.

The study also sought to establish the spending pattern among the people in regard to education levels. It is clear that the more educated fellows spend more compared to the fellows with less education levels. For instance, 35% of the fellows with no formal education spend approximately over one hundred Kenya shillings while 48% and 67% of those with primary and secondary education respectively spent the same amount over the same period. This is not surprising since participants with higher levels of education were found to be the most frequent phone callers and so the relation is directly propor-tional to the number of calls made.

Figure 15 :How much do you spend to make calls in a week * Highest education level Cross tabulation

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3.3 SMS communication

About 77% of the respondents interviewed send text messages (SMS) as a way of com-municating with Makueni county topping the list at 85%, Kiambu at 76% and Migori at 71%. It is worth noting that even though Kiambu topped the list with educated fellows (96% of respondents had post primary education), it did not top in the number of SMS us-ers. This means that not all educated people use SMS. However it is clear that education has influence in the use of text messages (SMS) as a way of relaying information; among respondents who had no formal education 58% said to have never used SMS, while only 11% among those with post primary education had not used SMS before. This clearly shows that for technology to be embraced by all members of the community there is need to ensure that citizens acquire at least basic primary education.

Figure 16 : How often do you send text messages (SMS) * Highest education level Cross tabulation

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There is a disparity between the male and the female participants when it comes to communication through the use of text messages (SMS). A bigger percent of the male respondents send SMS more often than the female respondents. 78% of the male re-spondents send SMS on a weekly basis compared to 65% of the female respondents. As earlier seen in the findings, most of the phone ownership is bestowed on the man and as such they have much time with the phone unlike the female, hence this could be one the factors leading to the disparity. Ignorance and difference in literacy levels between the two groups could also be the contributing factors in the disparities. It is therefore difficult to disaggregate the correlation between gender and education when looking at SMS use. Approximately 61% of male participants interviewed had at least post primary education while only 42% of the female participants had the same qualifications. The difference in education levels likely played a role since an illiterate person is not able to either read or write the text messages.

There also appears to be a strong correlation between age and use of SMS. From the study, it can clearly be seen that younger generations are more frequent users of SMS. 50% of the participants aged more than 50 years old said to have never used SMS while only 18% of the participants aged less than 50 years had not used SMS before. At the same time only 18% of those aged above 50 years old said to be sending text messages (SMS) on a daily basis while 42% of those aged below 50 years old said to be sending SMS on a daily basis. Again, this difference could also be attributed to education, 55% of those aged below 50 years old had at least post primary education while only 33% of the participants aged above 50 years old had at least post primary education.

Gender Age Total


50yrsMore than

50yrs

Daily 43% 34% 42% 18% 38%

5-6 times a week 4% 4% 5% 1% 4%

2-4 times a week 24% 19% 22% 19% 22%

Weekly 7% 8% 8% 8% 8%

Fortnightly 2% 1% 2% 1% 1%

Monthly 1% 4% 3% 1% 3%

Never 18% 27% 17% 50% 22%


Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table23: How often do you send text messages (SMS) * Gender & Age Cross tabulation

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3.3.1 SMS costs

Cost is one the factors considered by many people before using any given communica-tion channel and, according to the iHub study looking at mobile phone usage at the base of the economic pyramid in Kenya, most people are subscribed to more than one Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in order to enjoy the cheap services (reduced call rates, free SMS, etc.) provided by the other MNOs. Majority of respondents interviewed (84%) spend less than Ksh. 100 in a week to send SMS, it is however clear that there is no significant difference in SMS cost spending as far as area of interview or gender is concerned.

The study further established that urban residents spend more on sending SMS in a week than the rural. About 94% of the urban and 92% of the rural dwellers said to be spending between Ksh. 0-500 in a week.

3.4 Internet communication

There has been steady rise in the number of mobile Internet users across the country, and, according to CCK report Quarter 4 2011-2012, 99% of the Kenyan Internet users do access it through their mobile phones. However, from our study conducted in the three counties, the majority of Internet non-users lack basic formal education (only 5% of those without formal education browse the Internet). There is also a disparity in Internet use between the different age groups and gender; most of the aged respondents who took part in the study believe that Internet is for the younger generation and therefore only a small portion (7%) of their population browse the Internet compared to 27% of those aged less than 50 years old.

On the other hand, majority of those who browse Internet were found to be the males. It seems a majority of female respondents do not know how to browse; 77% of the female who confirmed not using the Internet attributed lack of Internet skills and knowledge as the contributing factor. Not only are a lack of skills and knowledge the limiting factors in embracing Internet, but a lack of freedom too. Either of the spouse is threatened when

Gender Age Total


50yrsMore than

50yrs

Less than Ksh. 100 85% 83% 85% 75% 84%

Ksh. 101-500 9% 8% 8% 8% 8%

Ksh. 501-1000 1% 0% 0% 2% 1%

I don't know 5% 9% 6% 16% 7%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table24: How much do you spend to send SMS in a week

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one goes online, “My husband prohibits me from using the Internet…he fears I may get a lover from the use of Internet, especially Facebook” says one respondent.

One may ask, can Internet be used as a means to promote transparency in water sector? Are people willing and ready to embrace Internet? Based on the current low penetration and the low number of users it is clear that use of Internet alone may not be effective as a means of promoting governance in water sector since only approximately one in every five Kenyans browse the Internet.

Gender

Highest education level

No Formal Education

Primary Education

Post Primary

EducationTotal

MaleI don’t know how to browse the Internet

Yes 95.3% 77.5% 52.4% 66.8%

No 4.7% 22.5% 47.6% 33.2%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

FemaleI don’t know how to browse the Internet

Yes 100.0% 85.9% 54.9% 76.8%

No 0.0% 14.1% 45.1% 23.2%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

Table25: I don’t know how to browse the Internet * Highest education level * Gender Cross tabulation

Lack of technical know-how is the major hindrance towards use of Internet among the many respondents interviewed. 64% of the Internet non-users attributed lack of knowl-edge on how to go about browsing the Internet as the main reason as to why they do not browse. “I don’t know how to use computers nor to browse”, posed a lady. It is a challenge that is cutting across all the groups of respondents but is more rampant among the fe-male, affecting 67% of the female respondents and 59% of the male respondents.

Another hindrance in browsing the Internet is the fact that many of the mobile phones being used do not support the Internet. 40% of the respondents cannot browse simply because their phones do not have Internet functionality. A number of people interviewed have simple phones with basic features and so their phones are just for basic use (making and receiving calls). 11% of the respondents are always busy, and therefore have no time to browse the Internet. 3% of the respondents gave other reasons such as being too old to browse and having no interest in using the Internet. An equal number of respondents (2%) believe that browsing consumes a lot of phone power and consumes much of the time. Lastly, 3% of the respondents are hindered from browsing by the expensive Inter-net costs.

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Figure 17 : Why don’t you browse the Internet?

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3.5 USSD communication

USSD is a code used by phone manufacturers and carriers for simple customer support. The letters stand for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD). It is a Global Sys-tem for Mobile (GSM) communication technology that is used to send text between a mo-bile phone and an application program in the network. Applications may include prepaid roaming or mobile chatting. The code starts with an asterisk (*) and continues with hash tags or digits representing commands/data, then ends with a hash tag (#). By entering these codes on your phone you can, for example, confirm your airtime balance, the USSD code for confirming Safaricom’s airtime balance is *144#.

USSD is similar to Short Messaging Service (SMS), but, unlike SMS, USSD transactions occur during the session only. With SMS, message scan be sent to a mobile phone and stored for several days if the phone is not activated or within range. It however, still an unfamiliar technology with challenges such as costs from mobile operators and lack of compatibility with certain phone models. As the name suggests, it is very structured and may not incorporate room for views or open comments. Also there is no transparent information on USSD development and sustainable models. Despite these challenges, if well executed with key strategic partners who sustain the costs of the application usage rather than citizens then it can reach a wider mass of audience as it works in low-end phones. A number of considerations need to be undertaken to ensure for USSD technolo-gies to succeed, these include and not limited to: consumers undergoing no cost, simplifi-cation of the structure and having a consistent structure that has no breaks.

About 85% of the participants interviewed were aware and had used USSD code. How-ever, the term USSD seemed to be new to many participants, but they were aware of “Bonga Points”, a loyalty program awarded to the consumers by the Mobile Network Op-erators and had redeemed the points before. Male respondents dominate in USSD aware-ness over the female respondents. 90% of the male participants were familiar with USSD code while 81% of the females interviewed confirmed their familiarity with the code.

It is true that indeed education subjects an individual to many opportunities and as such, as one advances in education so is he/she opened up to many technological opportuni-ties. Only 48% of those with no formal education were familiar with USSD, 82% of those with primary education were familiar with USSD while 93% of the participants with post primary education confirmed their familiarity with the USSD. This shows how education plays a major role in familiarity with the available technology.

Not to be ruled out is the role of age in technology familiarity and use. Most of the older generation in the society seems to be backwards as far as use of technology is concerned, a number of the aged respondents believe that technology is meant for the younger generation. 88% of participants aged less than 50 years old were familiar of the USSD against 71% of those aged 50 years old and above. This disparity could therefore

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be as a result of the culture that has existed over the years, “technology is meant for the younger generation”, ignorance, illiteracy or lack of interest among the older generation.

3.6 Challenges/Hindrances faced by citizens when using the current communication media

According to the study, face-to-face interaction was the most commonly used mode of communication and followed by traditional media (TV/radio). These communication chan-nels are however faced with a number of challenges that limits citizens from receiving information on water from the various authorities involved thereby hindering effective transparency in the sector. 35% of those who currently receive water related information confirmed of having faced challenges while trying to get the vital information.

It is positive to note that 65% of the respondents reported that they currently do not face any challenges while using their preferred channels of communication to receive water related information with 38% of those who made calls having faced no challenge and the rest being those who used face-to-face.

Missing out on information:

The major challenge pointed out by the respondents is missing out the news or the scheduled meeting. It has to be understood that some of the channels currently used by the respondents require physical attendance; failure to attend the meeting or tune to the TV/Radio means failure to get the information relayed. There are no clear details where citizens can obtain information on water; “We just stumble on information meaning some-times we don’t get all the information” is what one respondent said about the situation they are currently experiencing in trying to access information on water.

They stated it is “a hustle” to get information; this indicates the strong desire that citi-zens have to get informed, but are limited in receiving the information. Therefore there

Figure 18 : Citizens facing challenges in using their preferred channel of communication

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is a serious need to bring information closer to the people since citizens are yearning for it, but can’t easily access it.

Failure to get the targeted person to give out the required information:

Another challenge that citizens cried foul of is failure to get the right person or the tar-geted person who would give out the required information. This becomes worse when one has travelled for a long distance (this came out as an issue from 9% respondents) and spent some money for transport fare or forgone some of his/her other duties and time just to miss out on the intended person. There is therefore need to have designated and reliable sources of information or persons where citizens are assured of getting the re-quired information whenever they need it. More so, there is need to have trusted sources that are within the reach of the communities be it urban or rural.

Fear of victimization:

Fear of victimization is another crucial issue that citizens talked of. 4% said that the current channel of communication (face-to-face) puts them vulnerable to victimization. Citizens therefore attend meetings and act as passive audience, where they listen to the speaker and ask no question or clarification for fear of being pinned down. They choose to remain unanimous even in mass communication.

Failure to get response or action

The study further established poor feedback as a stumbling block in trying to access information. 7% of the respondents complained of poor feedback from the concerned authorities, where respondents fail to get response regarding the complaints raised or immediate action, as they would have to wait for even more than years for their problems to be solved. For effective governance, the feedback channel has to be improved, when action is taken following feedback, everyone should be informed. This will demonstrate to people that their feedback was utilized and it will ensure that people continue to offer feedback in the future. It is also important for the authorities to communicate when they don’t take action. Explain the reasons why the problem could not be solved, or highlight other actions that could have been taken instead.

Time/financial constraints:

It is said that time is money and time wasted can never be recovered. About one in every ten respondents interviewed lamented of time and financial constraints as the challenges they currently face in trying to access information. Some of the places where information can be accessed are located far from the citizens and such citizens must incur expenses in order to be at such places. This does not augur well with the pockets of many respond-ents. Other citizens just do not have the time to go and attend the meetings. This means these individuals fail to get informed on upcoming issues in water sector.

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Figure 19 : Challenges currently faced

4.0 Technological platforms chosen by citizens for communication and dissemination of information

The aspects of convenience, cost, and simplicity could be attractive to many respondents towards the use of SMS in disseminating information. Over half of the respondents inter-viewed (51%) believe that SMS would be the best platform for communication between the citizens and the various stakeholders in the water sector. This is indeed true regard-less of the age or gender. The catch in use of SMS is pegged on its effectiveness and convenience, 44% of the respondents believe that SMS is convenient and effective to use as compared to other platforms. “An SMS is the best option because even if one has switched off the phone, he or she will receive the text later”, says one respondent. This fact makes SMS platform outstanding among other platforms. It is however surprising that despite fewer female respondents browsing the Internet; many women feel that the best technology platform would be the use of Internet.

Phone calls came in second at 35% as best preferred platform by the citizens for dis-seminating water information. The citizens related phone calls as an easier to use plat-form, easy to communicate, especially for the age bracket of more than 50 years old who cannot be able to read well and write. Use of social media and USSD (Unified Structured Supplementary Data) are still considered unfamiliar technologies with only an average of 1% and 6% respectively who preferred these types of platforms for disseminating information.

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Gender Age Total

Male FemaleLess than

50yrsMore than

50yrs

Use of phone calls 32% 38% 30% 57% 35%

Use of Internet 2% 4% 4% 1% 3%

Use of USSD short code 8% 4% 7% 0% 6%

Use of Social Media e.g. Facebook, Twitter

1% 1% 1% 0% 1%

Use of SMS 55% 48% 55% 38% 51%

Other (Radio, TV) 2% 4% 3% 5% 3%

I don't know 1% 1% 1% 0% 1%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table27: What technological platform do you think would be best in information dissemination between you and the concerned parties in the water sector?

Literacy levels played a huge role when it came to respondents choosing their preferred technological platform. 66% of the respondents who had no formal education preferred to use phone calls as it was easier to use and required no writing or understanding dif-ferent languages to communicate. The respondents who had formal education preferred SMS the most at 46%, as it was easy and they could read and write well with basic educa-tion at hand.

Surprisingly, technologies that require use of Internet, e.g. social media, did not seem to be in the top list of platforms the citizens preferred. This can be attributed to the fact that most of them have simple phones that do not have Internet-enabled capabilities, and for the handful whose phones have Internet capabilities, many do not know how to use it or did not bother to use it.

There is need for technology literacy to the citizens in order to ensure that there is lever-age in using the capabilities of technology in transparency, communication and in return reducing corruption in the water sector.

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About 1% of the respondents don’t really know which technology would be best in infor-mation dissemination, “I don’t know, but I think a combination of telephone calls, semi-nars and public rallies would work wonders”, said one respondent.

Figure 20: Preferred technology based on education level

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Figure 21 : Preferred technology based on area of interview

4.1 Reasons for choosing the preferred platform

Convenience:

The respondents had their reasons for selecting their preferred platform. In the order of preference it was first the convenience or effectiveness (30%). Use of Internet and social media networks were considered to be at the top in convenience factors. This can be at-tributed to the fact that they are fast and real time in getting information and responding back. This attribute was of more value to the post primary respondents at 36% followed by respondents with primary education then the ones with no formal education at 27% and 12% respectively.

Ease of use:

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Ease of use of the technological platform followed closely at an average of 29%. When it comes to the ease to send and receive information, phone calls was most preferred as citizens did not need to take time to write or communicate their message, but what was needed is to pick up the phone and talk. Use of SMS was second preferred to its ease of use as the interface is straightforward and with basic education one did not need a manual to know how to send an SMS.

Radio and TV have been known as the universal media of communication, however, the respondents felt the ease of sending and receiving messages is not that easy (7%). These channels have their own disadvantages, in that users cannot refer back to the news to go over important points. Secondly, it is not as fast as using a phone and most of the users are usually doing something else while listening to the radio hence they might end up missing vital information.

Interestingly, respondents with no formal education (42%) preferred this reason the most while choosing their preferred platform compared to the ones with basic and post primary education at 30% and 25% respectively.

Affordability:

Affordability was a key concern in choosing the preferred platform at 8%. Respondents preferred use of SMS the most, as it is cheaper in sending and receiving information. Sur-prisingly, this was followed by use of Internet at 8% compared to use of radio, USSD and phone calls. The surprise can be attributed to the fact that most of the respondents had little knowledge in costs especially in USSD and Internet, hence they perceived platforms such as internet as affordable platforms. What they don’t know is that they are the most expensive, e.g. USSD per session can cost them up to USD 0.1 and using Internet can cost them up to Kshs 500 per day from their mobile phones.

When it comes to affordability, the respondents with post primary education chose this reason more (10%) compared to the ones that had basic education (7%) and once with no formal education at (6%).

Mass audience reach:

This factor was considered at an average of 8%. When it comes to reaching a wider target audience, uses of social media (50%) followed by Radio/TV (48%) were seen to be the most effective. Use of Internet followed in third at 16%. The other channels like USSD, SMS, and phone calls were not highly placed when it came to reaching a wider target au-dience. These findings can be attributed to the fact that respondents did not understand or were familiar with the technologies hence perceived wrong information

This was of more important to the respondents with no formal education at 13% com-pared to the ones that had primary and post primary education at 8% each.

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Speed:

Respondents (17%) preferred to use Internet the most when it comes to speed and instant communication. This was followed closely by phone call communication at 9%. Then use of SMS at 6% followed by Radio/TV media at 3%. Channels such as USSD and use of social media their speeds were perceived to be of 0%. This can be attributed to the fact that the respondents had little knowledge and skills on social media and USSD technologies. There is therefore need to educate the citizens on use of platforms such as social media and USSD. This can be a way to engage the citizens by providing relevant water related information and improve transparency through strategic tools for mass communication.

Level of engagement:

Phone calls were most preferred at 18% when it comes to engagement level. Radio/TV followed at 4%. The other channels such as use on Internet, social media networks, USSD and SMS were perceived to be at 0% level of engagement. There is high need of civic edu-cation to inform the citizens on use of channels such as social media, Internet among oth-ers and how they can be used as a tool for civic engagement due to their social nature.

7% Respondents with post primary education chose this reason the most, compared to respondents with no formal education and basic education at 3% and 6% respectively.

Direct communication:

USSD tool lead with 12%, this can be attributed to its structured nature of communica-tion and straightforwardness. Radio followed closely at 11% as preferred platform in dis-seminating information due its attribute of direct communication and the fact that it can reach a larger audience as majority of people in the rural areas have access to local radio stations. Here respondents with basic education chose this the most compared to the ones with post primary and no formal education.

Others:

Other reasons that mattered to the respondents included: skills to use a particular plat-form e.g. if it is the Internet, do they have the required skills to access the Internet and use it to get relevant water related information?

An average of 2% of the respondents did not know what reasons to put in mind while choosing a particular platform for their communication. This can greatly be explained by the fact that most were still unfamiliar with the technologies and relied on their house-hold members to access some of the platforms.

Another 2% chose the platform simply because they felt that most Kenyans had mobile phones. It is however surprising that about 3% of those who had chosen TV/Radio as the

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best technology platform attributed the reason to the fact that most Kenyans were in acquisition of mobile phones.

4.2 Some of the challenges citizens’ foresee with the preferred platforms

Challenges were foreseen by respondents with their selected preferred platforms. These challenges included the following:

Cost:

High costs associated with these platforms was noted to be the most stated challenge by 45% of respondents. This is due to the fact that most of the platforms require use of money/credit to access. Use of SMS was seen to be the most expensive due to the pur-chase of credit and SMS costs that vary from one mobile operator to another.

Missing out on information:

20% of the respondents were faced with this challenge that may have resulted due to missed calls or information escalated by radio channels as they are very strategic and not periodic. Sometimes due to the lack of electricity, citizens end up missing the information as well. Having to travel long distances to look for the information or access the preferred platform, e.g. Internet is also a hindrance they foresee.

Delays:

15% of the respondents are facing delays in failure of response. Use of SMS was seen as the most affected as sometimes it might take a while for receiver to revert at a respon-sive rate. Phone calls were also a culprit as response rate is sometimes slow or bounce rates are high.

Inability to use the platform:

Technology illiteracy is still at high rates, especially in the rural communities. An average of 13% of the respondents has no capability when it comes to use of some of the pre-ferred platforms. This was mainly experienced from the use of SMS as it required one to know how to read and write, especially for the population above 50 years old and some-times language barrier can be a major hindrance.

Others:

Other challenges faced by the respondents included insecurity and fraud, and fear of be-ing tracked down. Sometimes too many SMSs received can be a nuisance.

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Figure 22: Did household complain based on

counties

Figure 23: Did household complain based on area of

interview

68% of the respondents had faced challenges while trying to access water and never complained to any one of the problems affecting them. The study affirmatively learned that lack of idea on whom or where to complain was the major reason as to why most respondents did not complain. 61% did not know who/where to complain and majorities were from the rural area (urban, 57% and rural 62%). 1% complained that the people to complain to are too far away.

In terms of counties, Makueni county topped the list with highest number (78%) of re-spondents unaware of where/whom to complain to when faced with water related chal-lenges. If the respondents knew where or rather who to complain to then they would not hesitate to raise alarm when faced with the challenges in trying to access water. “I can complain if I know to whom should the complaint be addressed to,” stated one respond-ent.

5.0 Feedback

The study sought to establish whether citizens raise alarm when they are faced with problems related to water, the communication channels they use to put up their com-plaints, and the satisfaction level citizens get out of the attention accorded to them. This section therefore seeks to answer questions on feedback mechanism, how the citizens went about the problem, the satisfaction they got and why other citizens never com-plained when faced with the problems related to water.

5.1 Citizens complaints

Out of the total number of respondents (68%) who had faced challenges while trying to access their main source of water, only 39% said to have complained about the problem with majority (46%) of the complainants coming from the urban areas. 97% of the urban folks had attained post primary education while 91% of the rural folks had at least post primary education. This therefore confirms that while education may influence respon-siveness in raising alarm, the impact is not much. The responsiveness could as well be triggered by among other factors campaign awareness and quick access to information in the urban

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15% of the respondents who never complained cited reluctance on the part of the au-thorities. They felt that it is needless to complain since no one listens to their pleas, “Complaining is like wasting time because nobody is bothered about the complaints”, said one middle aged man from Kiambu county.

There is a feeling among the citizen that only those who have money are entitled to com-plain. 10% of the respondents stated lack of ability or courage to face the authority as the reason for not complaining; “I am poor, I cannot complain”, posed one respondent. He went further and said that even if he complains no one would listen to him. Others (espe-cially those who lived in rental houses) felt that it is not their mandate to complain, but rather the responsibility of the landlord/landlady. At times, it is the landlord/landlady who rations the water and if the tenants complain they risk being ejected from their rentals.

Time is another crucial factor; 2% had to suffer in silence since they could not get time to go to the authorities in charge to put across their complaints. Many of whom are either held up at work or businesses until late hours when the offices are closed.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. The necessity to overcome some of the water problems affecting the citizens has prompted a number of citizens to come up with other alternatives. 9% of the respondents did not complain when faced with prob-lems simply because they had invented other alternatives. For instance, water rationing and constant water shortages have led some citizens to dig wells and boreholes that would help them have water all the time without being controlled.

At the same time, 2% of the respondents said that they were used with the problem and saw no need to complain. It is either they had accepted the problem to be part of them or felt that no amount of effort can help change the situation. “I don’t think it can be solved, it is a natural disaster”, said a middle-aged man.



Reasons Kiambu Migori Makueni Urban Rural Total

I don't know who/where to complain 48% 58% 78% 57% 62% 61%

Am always busy 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2%

We have alternatives 14% 5% 5% 7% 10% 9%

I can't complain to anybody; it's a natu-ral disaster

1% 1% 2% 1% 1% 1%

No one listens/acts; so it's needless to complain

14% 26% 7% 16% 14% 15%

Am used with the problem 2% 3% 1% 3% 1% 2%

I have no ability/courage to complain 19% 3% 5% 14% 9% 10%

People we can complain to are far away 0% 2% 1% 0% 1% 1%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

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5.2 Who do the citizens complain to when faced with water problems?

It is the mandate of the ministry of water and irrigation to ensure that each and every citizen has access to water. With this in mind, 22% of the citizens interviewed when faced with water challenges go to the ministry docket in charge of water. 55% complain to other authorities who include landlord/caretakers and employees or officers of water supply in the region also fall under the ministry of water. In Kiambu county, for instance, the highest number of complaints (39%) were directed to the Ministry of Water and Ir-rigation, this is however not true for Migori and Makueni.

Counties with the highest number of complaints (32% and 26% respectively) were direct-ed to the public administration officer (e.g. chief, D.O) at an average of 21%. This could be driven by the proximity and accessibility of the nearest authority to the citizens; public administration officers especially the chiefs are very close to the people more so in the rural set ups which Migori and Makueni are highly inclined to.

Despite the fact that more of the rural folks (27%) preferred going to the public admin-istration officers (e.g. chief, D.O), it still emerged that Ministry of Water & Irrigation and public administration officers are the top two receivers of citizens’ water-related com-plaints. The proximity with which the public administration officers are to the citizens probably is the contributing factor and therefore making them the champions of informa-tion that the citizen would desire to have.


Kiambu Migori Makueni Total

Ministry of Water & Irrigation 39% 10% 14% 22%

Public administration officer (e.g. Chief, D.O)

8% 32% 26% 21%

Friend/relatives 0% 3% 3% 2%

Youth/women groups 0% 3% 15% 6%

Media 0% 1% 1% 1%

Religious leaders 0% 3% 0% 1%

I can't remember/i don't know 2% 1% 0% 1%

Other 59% 68% 42% 55%




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Youth/women groups also have a role in regard to water issues affecting both the rural and urban residents. 5% and 7% of the urban and rural residents respectively said to have complained to the youth/women groups when they had issues with water. Other chan-nels that were used in the urban respondents are media channels at 2%. Surprisingly, church leaders (1%) were not highly placed when it came to escalating citizens’ voices. Friends and relatives were also placed among the last options at 2%.

5.3 Who else do the citizens complain to?

It is important to note that majority of respondents prefer to raise their complaints one on one to either the water providers or landlord/caretaker and not necessarily the Min-istry of Water & Irrigation. It has to be understood that some of the complains relate to the water providers or landlord/caretaker, e.g. if it is water hike issues it makes sense to complain to the landlord first as the chain of complains is clear rather than go to the ministry first. So there is a chain and also the issues may relate first to the people they choose to complain to. In fact the highest number of citizens (44%) raised complaints to officers or other employees of the water projects in their respective areas. The second largest receiver of complaints (30% of the respondents) was landlord/caretaker.

Table29: who did you complain to*Area of interview Cross tabulation

% within Area of interview Area of interview

Urban Rural

Ministry of Water & Irrigation 21% 22%

Public administration officer (e.g. Chief, D.O)

10% 27%

Friend/relatives 1% 2%

Youth/women groups 5% 7%

Media 2% 0%

Religious leaders 1% 1%

I can't remember/i don't know 1% 1%

Other 63% 51%

Unprotected dug well/spring 4% 6%

Total 100% 100%



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Politicians also have a role as far as issues affecting citizens are concerned, about 10% of the respondents feel that their elected leaders should help solve the issues affecting them.

A number of citizens are affected not only with the problems of water scarcity nor price exploitation but also with health issues that come along with contaminated water and it is for this very reason that it is not surprising to observe a number of complaints being directed to the Ministry of Health and to the companies that offload sewage to the rivers and lakes. It is not by surprise that noticeable number of people (about 1 out of every 100 people) complains to KPLC since the problems affecting the citizens are diverse and need different attention at different levels and probably the need of electricity to aid in communication through the phones or other media (TV/Radio).

Figure 24: A bar graph showing the receiver of complaints made

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5.4 Wrong person to complain to?

A number of citizens do not mind whether the receiver of their complaints is the right person or not, what matters is the action taken against their concerns. Approximately 7% of the respondents interviewed could not tell whether the person they complained to was the right person to address their issues or not, while 12% out rightly knew that whoever they complained to was not the right person. This could probably be based on the position of the person complained to, where the person works or the action taken by the person complained to.

This clearly indicates that there is a need by the government, media the civil society or-ganizations and or Water Action Groups (WAGs) to enlighten the citizens on who, where and when to address issues related to water affecting them so as to be assured of posi-tive feedback. Addressing issues to the wrong person could be the possible reason as to why citizens fail to receive response or action on matters raised.

5.5 Platform citizens used to complain

As earlier mentioned, a big percent of citizens access information related to water by means of face-to-face, it is not therefore by surprise that majority of the respondents (approximately 9 out of every 10) use the same platform to air out their grievances. 11% of the respondents used mobile phone (3% used SMS while 8% made phone calls) to let the authorities know of their problems.

Urban residents make calls and send SMS more frequent than their counterparts in rural areas, it is therefore not surprising to note that a higher percent of urban residents com-municate their problems more often using mobile technology than the rural folks. It is however a very slight difference with 14% of the urban residents and 12% of the rural residents communicate their problems by use of mobile technology.

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Figure 25 : Platform used to make complains

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5.6 Action and feedback

It is proven that access to information and communication in its own right plays an impor-tant role in promoting good governance (Coffey, 2007). Further, information delivery to public is a key task of government and it is their responsibility to keep citizens informed of what is happening around them. It is therefore crucial that for any communication to be considered effective there must be a well-organized system of relaying the feedback. In the study conducted in the three counties in Kenya, it was established that much of the citizen’s concerns go unattended to.

Citizens were asked whether someone acted on their concerns related to water issues and about 43% of the respondents calmly stated that no one bothered to take action on the matters they raised. 57% of the respondents said that someone acted on their issues, however despite getting attention, the question is how long it takes for the feed-back to be received? In some instances it took up to over one year to get the reply.

5.7 Citizen Satisfaction

Communication motivates and stimulates how citizens view the organizational structure towards meeting their demands. It is an important part that helps manage complaints and feedback from the citizens, making sure that citizens are satisfied with the outcome of their complaints. The study therefore sought to understand the levels of citizens’ sat-isfaction with respect to the complaints raised. Levels of satisfaction were found to vary with the county when it comes to rating the action taken on water complaints raised. When asked whether the person the citizens complained to was the right person to han-dle their issues, Migori county recorded the highest percent of people who admitted that the person complained to was the right person. Ironically, the highest number of dissatis-fied citizens was again recorded in Migori County at 65%. Despite believing in the person complained to as the right person. Makueni followed this with 40% and lastly Kiambu at 30%.


Level of satisfaction Kiambu Migori Makueni Total

Strongly satisfied 19% 11% 18% 17%

Satisfied 23% 18% 23% 22%

Somewhat 25% 5% 20% 19%

Dissatisfied 16% 16% 20% 17%

Strongly dissatisfied 14% 49% 20% 24%

I don't know 3% 0% 0% 2%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table30: How satisfied were you on the action taken on the matter you raised?

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6.0 Measures and recommendations:

6.1 Recommendations from the citizensCitizens were asked to state which technological platform they feel would be best to disseminate information between them and the concerned parties in the water sector. Slightly over a half of the respondents who took part in the study chose SMS platform among other platforms. It is however true that the platform chosen is not 100% fit un-less otherwise some measures are undertaken to avoid possible foreseen challenges in future. The following are some of the recommendations made by the citizens to counter the possible challenges in using the technology;

I). The cost of sending/receiving information should be made free or cheap

The major challenge that the citizens pointed out with the use of SMS is the cost. 35% of those who chose SMS felt that using SMS might be expensive in future. The majority was comparing it to the mobile SMS subscriptions that deduct credit airtime whenever one sends an SMS. This prompted many to fear that it may be expensive in either send-ing or receiving information via phone call or SMS and therefore 37% of the participants propose that the cost of sending/receiving information should be made free or cheap to allow as many as possible citizens access the information without fear or worries.

% within County Area of Interview

Level of satisfaction Urban Rural Total

Strongly satisfied 18.5% 16.1% 16.8%

Satisfied 18.7% 23.3% 22.0%

Somewhat 22.2% 17.6% 19.0%

Dissatisfied 17.4% 16.7% 16.9%

Strongly dissatisfied 23.2% 24.0% 23.8%

I don't know 2.2% 1.5%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

Table31: How satisfied were you on the action taken on the matter you raised? * Area of interview Crosstabulation

The study established that there exists a slight difference in the level of satisfaction between the urban residents and the rural residents. 40% of the respondents in urban areas and 41% of those in rural areas stated to have been dissatisfied with the action taken on the problems raised. This clearly shows that the challenges affecting the citi-zens cuts across and does not necessarily depend on the area of residence.

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II). People should be assisted, educated and sensitized on the use of technology in combating water issues.

It is true that not everyone can write and read, this might pose a challenge in embracing the platform. It is therefore recommended by the citizens interviewed that people should be assisted, educated and sensitized on the use of technology in combating water is-sues. Trainings and workshops should be organized in various parts of the country to educate and sensitize the citizens on their roles and how they can use mobile technology in ensuring effective governance.

III). Proper feedback mechanisms need to be put in place

Immediate response should be guaranteed and network boosters be improved so as to wash out fears of possible delays and failure of getting timely response. Good govern-ance is all about effective communication and transparency, for effective communication to be achieved proper feedback mechanisms need to be put in place; citizens’ concerns need to be tackled in accordance to the required attention and communication to be re-layed even if there is no action taken on the matter.

IV). SMS should be made as brief as possible

Long and frequent text messages can become a nuisance to many people. It is therefore recommended that SMS should be made as brief as possible and on designated set dates. Nonetheless, there is a feeling that text messages should be received whenever need arises. This will ensure that citizens are not left out with the current undergoings.

V). Phone call follow up

Despite some respondents preferring use of phone calls, 12% felt that one of the pos-sible challenges is missing out the information especially when the phone is off. It is therefore in order to send SMS just in case one misses a phone call.

VI). Use of local language

Language barrier is a hindrance in communication. Not everyone can read or in write in English or Kiswahili. About 1 out every 100 people interviewed feel that information should be disseminated in the local language in order for them to engage actively with the information.

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6.2 Recommendation from the researchers to the citizens

For transparency and accountability to prevail it is important that each and every play-er participates effectively. Governance is a collective responsibility of each and every person(s) involved, citizens should understand that it is not the role of government alone but government is just one of the actors. In view of this, citizens need to take into ac-count the following considerations:

I). Right to be informed

Citizens need to understand that they have a right to be informed on issues revolving in public service delivery regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or age.

II). Stay informed

Effective governance of water resources and water service delivery requires a combined commitment of citizens, government and various groups in the civil society, especially at the community level. Citizens should therefore not sit back and wait for the government to act, but should make efforts to understand what is taking place and where or how they can access water related information.

III). Citizen participation

Citizens have a role to play when it comes to ensuring water quality, management and transparency. Citizens need to be the champions of ensuring good governance in water sector is reached. They can achieve this through participating in water monitoring pro-grams, water conservation and management and serve as advisors to decision-makers. Active citizens’ participation in water and sanitation initiatives is crucial to ensure sus-tainable improvements in water services for the poorest.

IV). Ensure water supply protection mechanisms

It is time citizens stop being ignorant and learn from experiences on how to prevent, re-duce or eliminate contaminated threats in their array of access to different water sources. This can be achieved through education and outreach within the local communities and neighborhood to protect their drinking water. Households can also practice basic protec-tion methods, e.g. treat their water by boiling. More so, households should participate in water planning by assessing the problems in their areas and reporting to their immediate authorities at community level.

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V). Have a positive mind set

As reported earlier, citizens feel that water problems in their county are part of them. Hence such individuals believe there is no need to articulate their complains, ensure qual-ity water, or learn from already available water information. Citizens’ diminished hope with the other stakeholders can be linked to negative mindset to the lack of action when they complain. Also, as they may seem far away from the citizens or some corrupt cases. It is high time citizens change their mindset and look at the problems they face, as chal-lenges that can be solved to make sure they have an improved living standard. Citizens should think of themselves as agents by amplifying their voices and reporting on water issues as their right.

6.3 Recommendation to the other stakeholders, e.g. government, civil society in water sector

Governance is the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. It comprises the mechanisms, processes, and institutions, through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences (United Nations Development Pro-gramme, 2005).

Inclusiveness, accountability, participation, transparency, predictability and responsive-ness are some of the vital ingredients that make up good governance in water sector. Even though a series of reforms aimed at enhancing quality, efficiency and transparency in service delivery by water sector institutions have been rolled out by the government, there is still a long way to go.

I). Continuous refinement

Governance is not a predefined solution, but a process that needs continuous refine-ment as a function of new challenges, experiences and problems and as such a number of measures need to be put in place. If a significant number of people are still not aware where they can get information or air out their grievances regarding water issues, how then can these same people participate in water governance? Effective citizenship needs all citizens and communities to have ‘knowledge, skills and a sense of empowerment to play a meaningful role in local decision-making“ (Martin et al 2006). It is therefore impor-tant that champions of information be identified in each and every part of the country to educate the citizens on their roles in governance and provide them with other necessary information. This would help achieve the concept of inclusiveness and ensure participa-tion of all the stakeholders involved.

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II). Government effectiveness

Access to public services still remains a big hole with government still not acting in a timely manner and being reachable in ensuring service delivery. There is need for gov-ernment to cultivate decentralization, effective public administration and participatory planning and budgetary at the county level. Strengthening the local capacity and citizen empowerment at the county level to hear and respond to citizens’ problems can further enhance this.

III). Accountability in water services

Accountability is about being answerable for what is done, and requires the ability of citi-zens, civil society organizations (Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), media) and the private sector to scrutinize public institutions and governments and hold them to account (Rethinking Governance In Water Services, 2007). Accountability in water governance requires the government to understand the processes, tools and objectives for improved accountability. While much focus is placed on the government, there are still difficulties with the other stakeholders, e.g. civil soci-ety. This requires understanding on civic education and incentive mechanisms through creative engagement with local communities and government. Most of all, government and other water stakeholders need to ensure responsiveness in acting to citizens’ water issues. This can be done by ensuring equity in the development of water services, includ-ing concerns on women rights and access. Pro-poor policy making and implementation and the integrity of public officials in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities to citizens is needed to build responsive regulations in ensuring water quality.

IV). Ensuring transparency

Despite the fact that initiatives such as open data portals and e-governance frameworks being implemented by the local government, there is still high need for them to ensure openness across all sectors, up to date and actionable data or information that citizens can use and re-use to make informed decisions. This can also be done by using creative tools that are within the citizens’ reach, e.g. mobile phones that they can use to access available information on water. Media should also play a key role in escalating citizens complains and water information at county level. An example of existing application is M-Maji that has designed to give citizens in Kibera transparent information in their village of where thy can find clean water from water vendors near their landmarks.

V). Advocacy and capacity building

There is need for the government to partner with other water stakeholders, including the civil society, media, non-governmental organizations and academia in promoting aware-ness. Also act as spokesmen in ensuring citizens are in the know-how of water informa-tion, quality sources, management, and corruption impact. This can be achieved through

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continuous research and development, workshops, trainings on water management and protection, and building local skilled citizens that can educate and inform their house-holds and community at large.

Table31: What measures would you recommend so as to avoid problems in future with the platform you would prefer to use?

Measures Percent

I be sent SMS when my phone is off 4%

Cost of sending/receiving should be cheap/free 37%

I'll ensure phone is charged and available all the time 11%

People should be assisted/educated/sensitized on water/technology issues

21%

I don't know 4%

Immediate response to be guaranteed 3%

Network boosters to be improved 5%

Nothing can be done 1%

Face-to-face chat to be done 1%

Calls to be made at known specific time 1%

Decentralize information nearer to the people 1%

Local language to be used 1%

SMS to be made brief 3%

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Age

This study found that age could greatly affect levels of participation in e-governance. A greater number of younger respondents (less than 50 years old) make calls on a daily basis compared to those over 50 years old. Just like the case of making calls, the same pattern was observed to receiving call; most of the young respondents are proactive and therefore frequently make and receive calls compared to the older people interviewed in the survey. 92% of those aged less than 50 years of age receive calls on a daily basis while 77% of those aged above 50 years old receive calls on a daily basis.

There is also a strong correlation between age and use of SMS. From the study it can clearly be seen that youth are the frequent users of SMS. 50% of the participants aged more than 50 years old said to have never used SMS, while only 18% of the participants aged less than 50 years had not used SMS before. At the same time, only 18% of those aged above 50 years old said to be sending text messages (SMS) on a daily basis while 42% of those aged below 50 years old said to be sending SMS on a daily basis. This dif-ference could be attributed to illiteracy, 55% of those aged below 50 years old had at least post primary education while only 33% of the participants aged above 50 years old had post primary education.

It is interesting to note that despite respondents aged more than 50 years old sending SMS less often than their counterparts aged less than 50 years old; they are the greatest SMS spenders in a week. It is however not clear as to the type of SMS sent by those aged more than 50 years old that costs that much.

Most of the older generation in the society seems to be backwards as far as use of tech-nology is concerned, a number of the aged respondents believe that technology is meant for the younger generation. 88% of participants aged less than 50 years old were famil-iar of the USSD against 71% of those aged 50 years old and above. This disparity could therefore be as a result of the culture that has existed over the years, “technology is meant for the younger generation,” ignorance, illiteracy or lack of interest among the older generation.

Access to water information

Information is power; informed citizens are able to make clear and rightful judgments,

Conclusion

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contribution and can participate actively in any decision-making process. It is however sad to observe that many Kenyan citizens lack information on various key issues in the society. Despite efforts by the various public sectors to put up service charters to inform the citizens on service delivery, the term still seems to be unknown to the many citizens interviewed. 57% of the respondents do not have information on where to get clean and safe water when their main source is depleted, while 86% of the participants have no information as to what service charters are. More civic education by the key players in the water sector, e.g. civil society groups, government or academia groups is therefore necessary to inform and educate the citizens on what service charters are, where they can get informed and the role they can play to ensure good governance is achieved. Civic education can be done in the form of formal settings (schools) and informal settings (workshops, community meetups/barazas, mass media commonly used by residents, e.g. radio, face-to-face).

Issues affecting citizens when accessing water information

Time, distance, and money are other key challenges faced by citizens in trying to get in-formed on water issues. In some instances, information centres are located far from the citizens, making it hard for the citizens to attend the meetings, air their opinions, raise complain on issues affecting them or contribute to any decision making process. 86% of the citizens interviewed (51% endorse SMS while 35% endorse phone call) feel that mo-bile technology can be the best platform to disseminate information between the various stakeholders as it solves the issues of distance and times. The biggest fear that citizens have with mobile technology (especially SMS) is unnecessary delays in relaying back the feedback, it is therefore important that timely response are guaranteed and from trusted sources probably ministry of water & irrigation, water supply boards or public administra-tion since these are the highest receivers of complaints from citizens.

Water quality

When it came to issues of access to quality water and reliability, citizens are still faced with scarcity and low continuity. Citizens have to rely on poor quality water when their sources run dry. This was evident where majority of the respondents, 25% from the rural settings relied on their main source from surface sources such as lakes, rivers, ponds and streams compared to the urban community that relied on the same source at 14%. Rural communities continue to be vulnerable to problems associated with poor quality water, this is due to their main sources are mainly associated with dirty water and sometimes scarcity is an issue that makes it difficult to improve water supply. Water in lakes, rivers and ponds are usually not treated and if not properly maintained and stored leads to wa-ter borne diseases and sanitation issues due to the poor infrastructure in the rural areas. There is need for ensuring that there is proper water supply management to reduce, eliminate and prevent water borne diseases.

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Access of main source of water

Citizens continue to face challenges while trying to access their main source of water. With an average estimate of 68%, coming from the rural areas such as Makueni at 95% where the main source of water in not consistent and mainly rely on unprotected sources. Some of these challenges faced by citizens include: water shortages, dirty water, and price exploitation, among others. Access to main source still remains a limited supply leaving citizens having to walk long distances in search for other sources that turn out as unsafe.

Effective communication

Effective communication is needed to ensure good water governance is achieved. ICTs have played an important role in promoting information access and distribution through the use of technologies as tools in which citizens can access and at the same time report on positive feedback and issues they are facing. However, citizens in the rural commu-nities are still attached to face-to-face communication where 57% of the respondents interviewed stated face-to-face as their mode of communication in accessing water re-lated information.

Nevertheless, mobile phones have become a basic need for most Kenyans. This can be noted by the majority of the respondents who frequently make phone calls daily. Tech-nologies such as USSD (Unified Structured Supplementary Data) are still unfamiliar to many citizens. This can be attributed to their complexity and sustainability in business model and limitations such as structured interfaces with minimal time of interaction (3 minutes per session).

Challenges with communication channels

Citizens still continue to face a myriad of challenges using current channels of communi-cation. It is positive to note that 65% of the respondents reported that they currently do not face any challenges while using their preferred channels of communication to receive water-related information, with 38% of those who made calls having faced no challenge and the rest being those who used face-to-face. Some of the challenges faced by citi-zens include missing out information especially when it came to channels such as TV and Radio; lack of trusted and reliable sources of information or persons; fear of victimization; failure to get action of poor feedback from the concerned authorities; and high costs.

Factors considered by citizens in choosing their preferred communication platform

Despite the challenges that come with the preferred channel of communication chosen by the citizens, there were still a couple of positive factors about why citizens chose their

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preferred channel. The aspects of convenience, cost and simplicity could be the attracting force to many respondents towards the use of SMS in disseminating information. Over a half of the respondents interviewed (51%) believe that SMS would be the best platform for communication between the citizens and the various stakeholders in the water sec-tor. This is indeed true regardless of the age or gender.

Phone calls came in second at 35% as best preferred platform by the citizens for dissemi-nating water information. The citizens related phone calls as an easier to use platform, easy to communicate especially for the age bracket of more than 50 years old who can-not be able to read well and write e.g. a text might take too long. Use of social media and USSD (Unified Structured Supplementary Data) are still considered unfamiliar technolo-gies with only an average of 1% and 6% respectively who preferred these types of plat-forms for disseminating information due to their speed and level of engagement.

Gender equality

As mobile penetration increases across the developing world, the entry of mobile phones in the hands of women causes waves in many rural settings. Men are often the owners and users of mobile devices, leaving the woman with less capability to interact (Mobile futures, June 2011). From this study it was found that male respondents spent more money than the female respondents in making phone calls. Despite having a slight differ-ence in daily call frequency made by the male and female respondents (87% and 83% re-spectively), there was a large discrepancy in terms of spending between the two groups. 16% of the male respondents said to spend over five hundred Kenya shillings in a week to make calls compared to 9% (about half of the male respondents) of the female re-spondents.

On the other hand, majority of those who browse Internet were found to be the males, the question is why more males? It seems majority of female respondents do not know how to browse; 77% of the female who confirmed of not browsing the Internet attributed lack of Internet skills and knowledge as the contributing factor. Not only lack of skills nor knowledge are the limiting factors in embracing Internet but lack of freedom too. Either of the spouse is threatened when one goes online, “My husband prohibits me from using the Internet -he fears I may get a lover from the use of Internet especially Facebook” says one respondent.

Mobile phone in the hands of more women can help empower women in a myriad of ways: economic gains, increased access to information, greater autonomy and social empower-ment, and a greater sense of security and safety.

Education

From the findings, it is clear that literacy levels still remain a huge hindrance to citizen participation in water governance sector. Of the 74% respondents who said they have no access to any kind of water information, 76% have no access to formal education com-

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pared to the 24% who have access but have no formal education. Similarly, respondents who have primary education had higher information inaccessibility rates compared to those who had post primary education.

A majority of the respondents who had low literacy levels, portrayed ignorance traits by either not having time to look for the water updates or were not never concerned about the water updates. 47% of the respondents, who had no formal education, were mainly hindered by lack of knowledge on where to get the water updates. In short, the lack of education appears to be a major contributing factor to citizens not being aware of where to find the water updates and mostly they expressed that the government which they dependent on, is too far from their reach.

Education levels also affected the tools of communications citizens used. Communication pattern was found to vary among the respondents with different education qualifica-tions. Despite lack of formal education, people are still able to make calls. However, there are those who rely on help from others to enable them make calls. One respondent aged 63 years old from Migori County had this to say, “when I want to make a call, I give my grandson to dial for me the number and my work is to talk”, so with or without skills to operate the phone people still maneuver ways of communicating by all means through community efforts who are have literacy on use of the communication tools. It is also important to note that daily communication increases as one progress to the next level of education. 70% of respondents with no formal education made calls daily, 84% of re-spondents with primary education said to be making calls on a daily basis while 84% of those with post primary education said to be making calls daily.

Based on this study, it appears that the more learned one is, the more mobile phone tech-nology is used. 69% of the respondents interviewed who had no formal education said to be receiving calls on a daily basis, 88% of those who had attained primary education receive calls on a daily basis while 94% of those who possessed post primary education said to be receiving calls daily.

Especially in the rural settings where majorities have no access to formal education or at most have basic education, 49% preferred use of SMS, followed by phone calls at 38%. These 2 most preferred platforms are attributed to their simplicity, affordability, user friendliness, and require basic skills for the respondents to use to communicate effec-tively. On the other hand, use of Internet and social media networking was not a domi-nant tool for the rural communities as most of them had simple mobile phones with basic features, e.g. sending and receiving SMS and phone calls or had lower literacy levels.

Public education and awareness remains an important milestone towards promoting transparency and openness of public information in order to eliminate the myriad digital divide implications. Most of all, it is important to create social and economic well-being through reliable, available and actionable information such as services charters, open data portals that citizens can openly engage with.

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Feedback and action

Good governance is all about effective communication and transparency, for effective communication to be achieved proper feedback mechanisms need to be put in place; citizens’ concerns need to be tackled in accordance to the required attention and com-munication to be relayed even if there is no action taken on the matter. Out of the total number of respondents (68%) who had faced challenges while trying to access their main source of water, only 39% said to have complained about the problem with majority (46%) of the complainants coming from the urban areas.

Who do citizens complain to?

Approximately 7% of the respondents interviewed could not tell whether the person they complained to was the right person to address their issues or not, while 12% out rightly knew that whoever they complained to was not the right person. This could prob-ably be based on the position of the person complained to, where the person works or the action taken by the person complained to.

15% of the respondents who never complained cited reluctance on the part of the au-thorities. Secondly, some said their social class (considered themselves in the poor class) does not allow them to complain as only the rich should complain as they have money. This shows that the citizens are also culprits on promoting corruption based on their perceptions on social class divide. Others, who failed to complain, were held back by time while others considered the problems as part of their life hence so no need to complain.

Action

Citizens were asked whether someone acted on their concerns related to water issues and about 43% of the respondents calmly stated that no one bothered to take action on the matters they raised. Levels of satisfaction were found to vary with the county when it comes to rating the action taken on water complaints raised. The challenges affecting the citizens cut across and do not necessarily depend on the area of residence.

Technology

From this research, it seems evident that technology has great potential to improve wa-ter governance in Kenya. However, the practical use of technology as a tool in solving the current water challenges faced by citizens on the ground still remains fully untapped. Citizens are still unfamiliar with use of certain technologies, e.g. USSD and Internet (mo-bile web, social media). Most still use face-to-face communication to access information on water in their localities. 57% of the respondents interviewed stated face-to-face as their mode of communication in accessing water related information.

When it comes to choosing the technology to use, citizens considered factors such as cost, ease of use and level of engagement. Despite the low usage of technology tools,

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generally the respondents showed interest in using technology as a tool in receiving information, communicating their complaints and receiving feedback on water issues in their area. 86% of the citizens interviewed (51% endorse SMS while 35% endorse phone call) feel that mobile technology can be the best platform to disseminate information between the various stakeholders as it solves the issues of distance and times.

If properly developed and the right stakeholders involved at each level, technology can be used in solving and improving water transparency needs through creative ways. This can be through solving the existing water challenges faced by citizens, e.g. access to water information, amplifying their complaints, etc. Improved water governance can also be achieved by involving the users and the right stakeholders through each stage of de-velopment and implementation.

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Recommendations

There is need in ensuring the current issues faced by citizens on the ground are tack-led and the citizens are also playing an active role in participation. Literacy levels are still important to tackle when it comes to water issues affecting citizens, especially the women in the rural areas have no proper education on water protection and quality. It is important to have access to tools that will help citizens’ report and access information on water. There is therefore need for sensitization and awareness through civic education across the communities affected. Proper feedback mechanisms need to be in place to en-sure once the citizens complain, their issues are received, and responsiveness is enacted. Citizens also recommend low costs, e.g. when it comes to use of different communication channels to amplify their voices and use of local languages for them to actively engage.

More importantly, citizens need to ensure they stay informed and actively participate by being the champions of good governance where they report on water issues and serve as advisors to decision-makers in water monitoring, assessment and management. There is need for the other water stakeholders, e.g. government, civil society, media, non-governmental organizations and academia to also form combined efforts in ensuring that there is accountability, effectiveness, transparency, and build local capacity to ensure responsiveness and advocacy.

More so, it is important to implement policies and frameworks that will aid in promoting water transparency and creative strategies in sustaining water supply and strategies of how the government, citizens and other stakeholders (civil society, non-governmental organizations, media, academia etc.) can work together in development of an approach to prioritize, align, scale up, and solve existing challenges in water governance. This will not only include coordination and harmonization of activities in the water sector, but also eliminating the thorny issues such as corruption at the county level that will create a more successful stakeholder participation like improving the mobilizing of water informa-tion and build local capacity.

There is ample evidence that access and transparency helps ensure accountability and delivery in water provision as well as boosts effectiveness. There is need to demonstrate this and apply to water service providers. The effectiveness is particularly important in the sense of cost efficiency and ensuring service delivery. We need to learn from these experiences as mentioned in this research - and the underlying values - so that the bene-fits of civic participation, education, accountability and amplification are well understood and become a norm to ensuring water governance for development and sustainability.

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Appendices

Additional Information on Rural and Urban water supply organization

Level diagram of urban water supply

The main actors involved in the planning, delivery and maintenance of water service provision in urban areas. WSPs are the main formal providers responsible for the day-to-day operation of water supply systems in urban areas. A considerable number of informal actors exist who provide water services to people not having access to house or yard connections from the formal WSPs. These actors may serve as a complementary water source in areas where the WSP is rationing its supply.

Level diagram of rural water supply

The diagram below describes the main players involved in the planning, delivery and maintenance of rural water supply services. WSPs are active in some of the rural areas and small towns. The involvement of WSPs is promoted by the government and includes management of piped multi-village systems. Many resources for rural development are held in the ministries concerned although a number of donors have funded rural develop-ment through NGOs. District level authorities often lack resources and expertise to take up their responsibilities and are largely made up of local representatives of ministries and central agencies (Poole and Leakey, 1996).

Level Diagram of Urban Water Supply. Source: NWIS report 2011

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Types of water supply systems and design parameters

The main water supply systems that exist in rural and small towns communities can be ground or surface water based. In some rural areas and small towns, water vendors are also active, particularly where distances to water points are considerable or waiting times are long. In general, the vendors take their water from the same water sources so their main role is water transport.

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Sample service charter

Additional information on Field Work

Data Collection

The research supervisors had a meeting with the research assistants to train them on the questionnaire, discuss any questions they could have had and also go through the plan for their activities in the field. Also prior to the study, a pilot survey was conducted in Nairobi with five citizens and one stakeholder to provide benchmarks against which a comprehensive survey could be developed and aid in gathering valid information from the field of study.

The fieldwork activities for the study ran for 15 days concurrently in three Counties, and had a total of three sub teams made up of 3 supervisors, and 6 research assistants. Questionnaires containing both structured and unstructured questions were used. The structured questions gave the respondents possible alternatives from which to select the best answer that suits the situation. Open-ended questions accorded the respondent a chance to express personal opinion on specific issues.

The questionnaires were administered through personal delivery by the researcher and one questionnaire could last for about 30-45 minutes. The researchers went further to interview the respondent so as to verify the validity of some of the facts provided in the questionnaires. In order to justify some of the facts, the study involved collection of not only the primary data but the secondary data too. Secondary data were obtained from

93

the census data, books, Internet, and newspapers.

Limitations and future research directions

Although the study achieved its aims and goals, there were some unavoidable limitations that came along. First, the timing for the study coincided with the campaign elections period. This made a number of respondents to be a bit skeptical about the study; In Migori county for instance, one respondent demanded to know why we were conducting the study at this time when people were approaching election time and not any other time. Similar sentiments were echoed in Kiambu county by one respondent who thought that we were politicians who are out to lure their votes.

The issue of Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) September 30th, 2012 deadline for shutting off counterfeit phones also played a role in adding more doubt about the study among few respondents; in Migori, one respondent could not understand how the make of the phone/model was related to the study; it took us efforts to convince her it had nothing to do with the “fake phones deadline set by the CCK.”

The third challenge was in regard to people’s notion that we were part of the Kenyan government. For instance in Migori, we liaised with village elders to reach out to our citizen respondents. Village elders are the government representatives at the very grass root level. With this, the majority of the respondents felt that we were out to solve all their water related problems. This posed a challenge since respondents wanted to skew their responses to suit them. Despite this, we managed to convince the participants of our purpose and organizational background and were able obtain rightful information.

Since we had not visited the targeted sites prior to commencing field research it be-came challenging to answer some of the respondents’ follow-up questions. We ended up making several changes to the questionnaire and this resulted in delaying the time we took them for printing and time we anticipated to finalize the study in the 3 counties as planned.

Another limitation is that the study was conducted in only the three counties out of the 47 counties in Kenya. The data obtained was therefore not representative of the entire country, but only for the chosen counties and therefore we cannot generalize our data to represent the whole country.

Other places like Kiambu and Migori had heavy rains that disrupted the daily schedule and slowed down the interviews. Above all, the rains also affected the packaging and quality of the questionnaires as most interviews were conducted in an open place.

Future studies can take note of these shortcomings in planning future research work by, for example, piloting the intended areas of study to get the feeling on the ground. It would be also interesting for future studies to investigate what findings do other coun-ties display.

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Additional Tables and ChartsTable32: Have you or any of your household members faced any challenges while trying to access

your main source of water?



Yes 61% 55% 95% 69% 68% 68%

No 39% 45% 5% 31% 32% 32%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

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Table33: What are the challenges faced?*County Cross tabulation



Failed to get water for a cou-ple of weeks

Count 428309 149742 197206 775257

% within county

43% 30% 24% 33%

Hiked water bills Count 118348 15598 58002 191948

% within county

12% 3% 7% 8%

Price exploitation by the wa-ter vendors

Count 140891 18718 208806 368415

% within county

14% 4% 25% 16%

Water from the main source is not continuous

Count 349410 43675 307409 700494

% within county

35% 9% 37% 30%

Received/bought dirty water for a couple of weeks

Count 107077 277647 232007 616731

% within county

11% 55% 28% 27%

I can’t remember Count 11271 6239 2900 20411

% within county

1% 1% 0% 1%

Is there any other challenge faced?

Count 78899 212135 298709 589743

% within county

8% 42% 36% 25%

Total Count 986237 502260 835225 2323722



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Table34: What are the challenges faced?*Area of interview Cross tabulation


Urban Rural

Failed to get water for a couple of weeksCount 251001 524255

% within inter-view area

38% 31%

Hiked water bills Count 66922 125026


10% 8%

Price exploitation by the water vendorsCount 104952 263463


16% 16%

Water from the main source is not continu-ous

Count 264121 436372


40% 26%

Received/bought dirty water for a couple of weeks

Count 159632 457099


24% 27%

Is there any other challenge faced?Count 120715 469028


18% 28%

I can’t remember Count 5636 14775


1% 1%

Total Count 657675 1666047



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Table35: When was the last time that either you or a member of your household faced the challenges you mentioned? * County Cross tabulation



Less than a month agoCount 569200 193417 487215 1249832

% within county

54% 37% 59% 52%

Between 1-6 months agoCount 270511 137264 98603 506378

% within county

26% 26% 12% 21%

Between 7-12 months agoCount 61992 74871 29001 165864

% within county

6% 14% 4% 7%

Between 1-5 years agoCount 67628 34316 23201 125145

% within county

6% 7% 3% 5%

More than 5 years agoCount 50721 74871 165305 290897

% within county

5% 14% 20% 12%

I can't rememberCount 5636 6239 20301 32176

% within county

1% 1% 2% 1%

TotalCount 1053866 524098 823626 2401590

% within county

100% 100% 100% 100%

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Table34: What are the challenges faced?*Area of interview Cross tabulation


Urban Rural

Less than a month agoCount 433425 816406


62% 48%

Between 1-6 months agoCount 113653 392724


16% 23%

Between 7-12 months agoCount 51771 114093


7% 7%

Between 1-5 years agoCount 34966 90178


5% 5%

More than 5 years agoCount 58496 232401


8% 14%

I can't rememberCount 2900 29275


0% 2%

TotalCount 695211 1706375


100% 100%

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Table37: For how long did the problem last/persist when you faced it? * County Cross tabulation



Less than a monthCount 586107 68632 249408 904147

% within county

56% 13% 30% 38%

Between 1-6 monthsCount 253604 137264 217507 608375

% within county

24% 26% 27% 25%

Between 7-12 monthsCount 11271 9359 40601 61231

% within county

1% 2% 5% 3%

More than one yearCount 118348 40555 89903 248806

% within county

11% 8% 11% 10%

Entire of my lifeCount 39449 243331 188506 471286

% within county

4% 46% 23% 20%

I can't rememberCount 11271 21837 31901 65009

% within county

1% 4% 4% 3%

I don't knowCount 5636 3120 2900 11656

% within county

1% 1% 0% 0%

TotalCount 1053864 527218 820726 2401808

% within county

100% 100% 100% 100%

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Table38: For how long did the problem last/persist when you faced it? * Area of interview Cross tabulation


Urban Rural

Less than a monthCount 330166 573980


47% 34%

Between 1-6 monthsCount 162680 445694


23% 26%

Between 7-12 monthsCount 23640 37592


3% 2%

More than one yearCount 70810 177996


10% 10%

Entire of my lifeCount 86737 384549


12% 23%

I can't rememberCount 21179 43831


3% 3%

I don't knowCount 0 11655


0% 1%

TotalCount 695212 1706595


100% 100%

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Table39: County * 3.5.2 Do you think the person you complained to in 3.5.1 was the right person to address your issues? Cross tabulation

Table40: Area of interview * 3.5.2 Do you think the person you complained to in 3.5.1 was the right person to address your issues to? Cross tabulation

Yes NoI don’t know

Total

Kiambu% within County

74% 20% 7% 100%

Migori% within County

93% 6% 1% 100%

Makueni% within County

83% 7% 10% 100%

Total% within County

81% 12% 7% 100%

Yes NoI don’t know

Total

Urban% within Area of

interview77% 18% 4% 100%

Rural% within Area of

interview83% 9% 8% 100%

Total% within Area of

interview81% 12% 7% 100%

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Table41: Platform used*county Cross tabulation

Table42: 2.4.1 How much do you spend to send SMS in a week * Highest education level Cross tabulation



Face-to-face talkingCount 68 59 87 214

% within county

94% 88% 84% 90%

Sent SMSCount 2 0 7 9

% within county

3% 0% 7% 3%

Made a phone callCount 5 6 9 20

% within county

7% 9% 9% 8%

% within Highest education level


No formal education

Primary educa-

tion

Secondary education

Total

Less than Ksh. 100 64% 81% 87% 42%

Ksh. 101-500 7% 8% 9% 45%

Ksh. 501-1000 0% 0% 1% 9%

I don't know 29% 11% 3% 1%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

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Gender Age Total

Do you browse Internet? Male FemaleLess than

50yrsMore than

50yrs

Yes 33% 15% 27% 7% 23%

No 67% 85% 73% 93% 77%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table27: What technological platform do you think would be best in information dissemination between you and the concerned parties in the water sector?

Table42: 2.4.1 How much do you spend to send SMS in a week * Highest education level Cross tabulation

% within Highest education level


No formal education

Primary educa-

tion

Secondary education

Other Total

Yes 5% 8% 38% 56% 23%

No 95% 92% 62% 44% 77%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

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