Water Wheel May/June 2025: Rural Water Supply

Abstract

Last year, in an article titled ‘Water and Sanitation Services – how are we doing?’ in the September/October issue of The Water Wheel (see here ) I gave an overview of key findings from Census 2022, the General Household Survey 2023 and the most recent Non-financial Census of Municipalities, as detailed in publications by Statistics South Africa (StatsSA). At that stage, I wasn’t aware that a team from Partners In Development (PID) engineering consultancy were doing a much deeper dive into StatsSA and other data for a multi-year WRCfunded project focusing on rural water supply and sanitation services. Project leader and PID director David Still presented the findings in a webinar on 2 April, revealing the stark reality that – at the current rate and cost of backlog eradication – it will take another 20 years and more than R186 billion before all rural inhabitants have a piped water supply within 200 m of their dwelling.

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