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Landau and Ruhango

A partnership makes a pro-active contribution to public water supply

Squaring up to their global responsibility, the city of Landau and Ruhango District in Rwanda are jointly committed to realising the 2030 Agenda. The partner municipalities have worked on projects targeting SDG 6 - Clean water and sanitation for all - thus promoting SDG implementation.

Several people are on a construction site, some of them dressed in high-visibility waistcoats and helmets. A green, hilly landscape can be seen in the background.
In Ruhango District in Rwanda, more than 80 households get access to clean water. Photo: Charles Kabano

The partnership is one of the winners of the 2021 German Sustainability Award (GSA) in the category 'Municipal Partnerships'. With the project, ‘Local Governance Exchange Rhineland Palatinate – Rwanda’, the Service Agency Communities in One World, together with the RLP Ministry of the Interior and Sport, is leveraging the long-standing partnership between Rhineland Palatinate and Rwanda to promote professional exchanges between municipalities and institutions. The aim is to foster activities that will help realise the 2030 Agenda. The prize money was used to implement projects in the public water supply sector. The partnership agreed to focus specifically on SDG 6 and thus implement concrete projects that show how the 17 SDGs listed in the 2030 Agenda can be realised.

In Ruhango District, the partnership supported a project dedicated to expanding the water supply system so as to guarantee access to clean drinking water and thus support SDG target 6.1 ‘Achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.’ Expanding the water supply system gave a further 82 households in Ntongwe sector access to clean drinking water. The aim is to improve the hygiene and health situation on site and so raise the level of well-being across the board.

»Ruhango District really appreciates this award. This prize will help bring clean drinking water to at least 80 households in Ntongwe sector, leading to better hygiene and health across the population.«

Charles Kabano, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Director in Ruhango District

In Landau, drinking water fountains were installed as a public amenity in the municipality and its surrounding areas. In the face of climate change, heatwaves and strategies for coping with them are high on the municipality’s agenda. Installing public drinking fountains benefits everyone. The project will also help reduce the level of plastic consumption by making it easier to refill water bottles. In addition to SDG target 6.2 – ‘Achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene’– this will also make it possible to promote the SDG for ‘sustainable consumption’.

Looking ahead, the common goal is primarily to expand the partnership. This will enable the rollout of joint projects at local level, inter alia in cooperation with the waste disposal company - EWL - in Landau, that will make for clean water and sanitation in Rwanda.

Ruhango District has been working with EWL as part of the Local Governance Exchange Project Rhineland Palatinate-Rwanda since 2018.
The partnership forms part of the 40-year-long country partnership between the federal German state of Rhineland Palatinate and Rwanda.

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