water quality and promoting user awareness. the ministry of infrastructure (mininfra) is supporting districts in the construction of water supply systems, latrines and hygiene promotion with the support of unicef. the ministry of local government, good governance, rural development and social affairs (minaloc) is in charge of accompanying local participatory planning processes, appying the government's community development policy. actual planning is carried out by rwanda's 30 districts through district development plans which are elaborated using a participatory approach. the districts also own the water infrastructure. the regulatory agency rwanda utilities regulatory agency (rura), created by law in 2001, is responsible for the economic regulation of the telecommunications, electricity, water, sanitation, gas and transportation sectors. its mission is to: ensure that certain utilities provide goods and services throughout the country to meet in transparency all reasonable demands and needs of all natural persons and organizations; ensure that all utility suppliers have adequate means to finance their activities; continually promote the interest of users and potential users of the goods and services provided by utilities so that there is effective competition when competition is introduced in each utility sector and protection of users from abuses of monopoly positions is ensured because certain public utility sectors have a monopoly over the market. facilitate and encourage private sector participation in investments in public utilities; ensure compliance by public utilities with the laws governing their activities. the purpose of the agency's water and sanitation department is to: regulate in a way that promotes fair competition, sustainable and efficient use of water resources; ensure better quality of services to customers at fair prices; ensure effective protection of environment by enforcing wastes disposal and by-products treatment regulations. in practice, according to the agency's annual reports up to 2004, it seems that the regulatory agency focused much of its activities in the water and sanitation sector on the supervision of the management contract for electrogaz (now ewsa). service provision urban areas. the water and sanitation corporation (wasac) is in charge of urban water supply and sanitation in rwanda. its predecessor ewsa had more than 118,000 water customers in 2013, up from only 38,500 in 2005. rural areas. there are 847 piped rural water systems in rwanda and 19,300 protected springs. most of the piped water systems are pumped systems, as opposed to gravity systems, since in rwanda many settlements are at higher altitude than the water sources serving them. many systems serve a large number of villages: the largest ones serve up to 120,000 people living in villages dozens of kilometers apart. almost all users are served through water sales points where water is sold or given away for free by the bucket. house connections are rare in rural areas. services in rural areas are provided by community-based organizations (about 650 systems), by private operators under contract with district governments (about 140 systems) and privately owned systems (about 60), most of which were privately owned since at least 2000. financial aspects tariffs standpost/borne fontaine operator in gisagara district in the southern part of rwanda selling to a business client rural areas. water tariffs in rural areas are usually measured by jerrycan (bucket) for water sold at water kiosks or public standposts. in rural water systems managed by private operators in 2004 the water tariffs per jerrycan of 20 liters varied between 14 and 25 rwandan franc (rwf), equivalent to about 2.5 to 4.5 us cents per jerrycan or us$1.25 – 2.25 per cubic meter, according to the utilities regulatory agency. however, according to a world bank report of 2008 tariffs range from only rwf 2.5 (gravity-fed systems) to rwf 15 (pumping systems) per jerrycan (equivalent to us$0.25 to us$1.40/m3). in addition, and to alleviate the financial burden for the poorest part of the rural population, the districts keep a list of vulnerable households (widows, poor single-parent households), who get free access to water points. these lists are drawn up by communities and approved by local authorities. according to the world bank, "the principle of paying water at standposts in accordance with the volume consumed has been widely accepted, as the water users acknowledged the improvements in service delivery. more than fifteen years of experience with administrative or community management of water services proved that free or unpaid water resulted in little water or no water at all." for the few house connections the volumetric tariff is set at between rwf622 and rwf850 per m3 (us$1.13 and 1.55 per m3) according to the regulatory agency and at rwf185 to rwf600 per m3 according to the world bank. urban areas. as of june 2013 the urban water tariff was rwf240 per m3 for the first five cubic meters per month and rwf300 per m3 for any consumption between 6 and 20 m3 per month. higher tariffs are charged for higher consumption. water at public kiosks is sold at rwf240 per m3. cost recovery cost recovery in rural water schemes has apparently improved in those schemes that are run as public-private partnerships, despite the fact that some poor users receive water for free. private operators also pay a monthly rent to the districts for the right to use the systems, which remain publicly owned. investment level and composition. investments in rural water supply and sanitation increased from us$3.5 million in 2002 to us$32 million in 2006. mechanism. investments are channeled from donors and the national government to districts and communities through a community development fund (cdf) established in 2001. 10% of tax revenues are allocated to the cdf by law, although actual transfers remained short of this target in 2003. in that year, 4 bn rwandan francs (rwf) were approved, but only 1 bn rwf were disbursed. the 30 districts of rwanda sign annual performance contracts with the president of the republic about the construction of water facilities and the protection of catchment areas. a commission assesses progress on a quarterly basis. financing a large share of investments is financed by donors, including by the world bank. communities contribute to the initial capital costs. in 2009 the world bank's water and sanitation program and the government of rwanda completed a study of rwanda's funding mechanisms for water and sanitation which found that "existing financing modalities are highly fragmented and not appropriate for consistent financing of an ambitious water sector program". a new financing option recommended by the study was awaiting government approval in october 2009. it proposes a pooled water and sanitation fund that would handle both government and donor contributions through the same national procedures. districts would submit projects based on their regular planning procedures while a unit managing the fund would appraise and monitor the projects. the fund would be established under a new water supply and sanitation authority. external cooperation donors in the rwandan rural water sector follow a unified implementation framework which is based on the government's national strategy and program and medium-term expenditure framework. according to the rwandan development gateway, in 2005 rwanda's "achievements in establishing an aid coordination, harmonization, and alignment framework are being recognized as international best-practice." this is significant progress compared to the observation in the government's 2002 poverty reduction strategy paper, which had observed "a piecemeal and uncoordinated approach" among donors in the sector and had called for a sector-wide approach. the world bank supported rural water supply and sanitation through a series of projects, including the us$72.3 million water supply 02 project (1987–1998) and the us$20 million rural water and sanitation project (2000–2007). the latter has provided 352,000 people with access to improved water services by december 2006. at the same time more than 12 percent of the 830 water-piped systems existing in the country were privately managed. the world bank rated the project highly satisfactory in its 2008 completion report. in 2005 the european union (eu) signed a contract with the rwandan government for a major water project in the bugesera region (kigali rural) worth 16 billion rwandan francs (euro 23.24 million). the water project will benefit the four districts of kanzenze, gashora, bicumbi and kanombe in the eastern part of kigali city. the african development bank has recently committed us$12 million to rural water supply and sanitation. the british and belgian governments also support water supply and sanitation projects in rwanda. in 2009 the government of the netherlands has committed us$22 million for a water for sanitation and hygiene (wash) project to be implemented by unicef. the aim of the project is to increase the provision of water services and of sanitation facilities as well as to spread good hygiene practices. the project is implemented by four districts in the northern province with the support of the ministry of infrastructure. an evaluation of a previous us$5 million unicef project for water and environmental sanitation (wes) implemented from 1997 to 2000 concluded that its goals had been too ambitious and its hygiene and environmental sanitation component yielded little impact. however, in the 66 municipalities were the project intervened it increased access to water supply and succeeded in strengthening community capacity for managing water systems.