Assessing the functionality of a water-vending kiosk network with high-frequency instrumentation in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Access to safe, reliable, and equitable water services in urban settings of low- and middle-income countries remains a critical challenge toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6.1, but progress has either slowed or stagnated in recent years. A pilot water kiosk network funded by the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation was implemented by the Sierra Leone Millennium Challenge Coordinating Unit into the intermittent piped water distribution network of Freetown, Sierra Leone, as a private-public partnership to improve water service provision for households without reliable piped water connections and to reduce non-revenue water. This study employs the use of high-frequency instrumentation to monitor, model, and assess the functionality of this water kiosk network over 2,947 kiosk-days. Functionality was defined via functionality levels on a daily basis through monitored stored water levels and modeled water withdrawals. The functionality levels across the kiosk network were found to be 34% operational , 30% offline , and 35% empty . Statistically significant ( p < 0.001 ) determinants of functionality were found for several predictors across the defined thresholds. Finally, modeling of water supply, water demand and withdrawal capacity, and water storage was conducted to further explain findings and provide additionally externally relevant support for kiosk operations.
Competing Interests: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Evan Thomas reports financial support was provided by 10.13039/100005185Millennium Challenge Corporation via Cooperative Agreement No. 95332419T0005. Evan Thomas reports a relationship with SweetSense Inc. that includes: employment and equity or stocks. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(© 2024 The Author(s).)