Site Selection Tool
Which site(s) are suitable for a pre-paid water system installation?
In rural Africa, 25%–30% of water points fail due to poor maintenance, outdated data, and insufficient funding. Many communities fall into a build-neglect-rebuild cycle, where water points break down and remain abandoned. Pre-paid water systems address this issue by collecting small user fees to fund operation and maintenance (O&M), ensuring sustainable water access. However, not every location is suitable for such systems. Practica’s Site-Selection Tool helps organizations identify the best suitable locations for pre-paid water systems, maximizing adoption and impact.
Our innovation
The Site-Selection Tool is a structured, user-friendly approach to determine optimal locations for pre-paid water systems, which can be applied to both handpumps and piped-water systems. Initially developed and tested in Uganda, it is adaptable across African countries. The tool evaluates sites based on four key selection criteria:
🔹 Water Needs & Alternatives – Understand community water needs, usage preferences, and nearby alternatives. Will they adopt the prepaid system or opt for free sources instead?
🔹 Community Capacity & Acceptance – Trust and engagement are key. Assess the community’s ability to repair and monitor the system—are spare parts and skills available locally?
🔹 Capacity to Pay – Financial constraints matter. Gauge income levels through observations and conversations.
🔹 Willingness to Pay – Determine if, when, and at what price people are willing to pay for water
Our Design
The tool follows four steps to ensure accurate site selection:
🔹 Step 1: Quick Scan – Identify and pre-select potential sites with a simple template to answer 15 yes/no questions. Based on this selection field officers can do field visits and assess the suitability of locations for pre-paid systems.
🔹 Step 2: Fieldwork Preparation – Plan data collection, train field officers on what data to collect, its importance, and the proper methods before fieldwork.
🔹 Step 3: Key Interviews – For each potential pre-selected site, interview Community Development Officers using our questionnaire and hold interviews or group discussions (up to eight participants) with Community Members, Water Users, and Local Water Experts (e.g., pump mechanics/plumbers) using our guide.
🔹 Step 4: Analyze & Rank – Comparend rank sites with field officers and regional staff using the provided template.
Our ambitions
Practica empowers NGOs, water providers, and governments to establish reliable and sustainable rural water services. Our Site-Selection Tool ensures prepaid water systems are placed where they will be accepted, used, and maintained, breaking the cycle of unreliable access.
Practica’s WaterTime concept is an entrepreneurial model to manage rural drinking water services sustainability by: (1) providing flexible, low-maintenance solar-powered modular water systems, (2) water system asset management and financial planning tools, and (3) a mechanical prepaid system, called the Token Tap affordable as an affordable cost recovery mechanism to ensure financial sustainability of drinking water supply systems. Along with training, capacity building, and technical support, we help partners implement financially viable and community-centered water services that last.
Join us to build sustainable water access where it's needed most.
Are you interested in pilot testing, supporting scaling or becoming one of our future producers, retailers, or after-sales support partners? Please reach out!
Interested by the TokenTap?
Then don't hesitate to contact us. For more information on our impact, read our page on drinking water supply.