Three quarters of the DRC's population lack access to clean drinking water. Alongside disease, the burden of collecting water from distant government-run taps often falls to children and women. When these taps fail in the city of Goma, households can be forced to turn to expensive ‘water-truck mafias’, untreated collected rain water or to leverage nearby Lake Kivu.

In early 2018, Mercy Corps DRC representatives approached LSE CPAID researcher Dr Pat Stys to conduct research on an ongoing WASH programme which has built new water taps in Goma. With a team of international and local researchers, Pat uses a mixture of social network research and financial diaries to study whether the taps have changed the lives of people living in 28 households in some of the city’s lower socio-economic neighbourhoods.

The project has trained five Congolese researchers to use an innovative mixture of social network research and financial diaries to understand how households manage their resources. They visit the households once every two weeks over 11 months to collect in-depth data to reveal the water taps’ effects, by comparing the experiences of those with access to those without.

The project aims to discover whether households with access to taps are better able to plan financially due to the steady supply and lower costs of water, and whether they are better able to use their resources and networks to cope with unexpected shocks, such as ill-health or other great expenses. Our findings will inform Mercy Corps' intended scale-up of their programme to Bukavu, DRC and investment in schemes such as independent savings co-operatives. 

Policy briefs

• Understanding household coping strategies in Goma, DRC. Tom Kirk, Patrycja Stys, Samuel Muhindo, Bauma Balume, Papy Mazuri, Ishara Tchumisi, Sandrine N’simire & Duncan Green (2021).

Journal papers

• Kirk, T., Green, D., Stys, P., Mosquera, T. (2023). Adaptive programming and going with the grain: IMAGINE's new water governance model in Goma, DRC. Development Policy Review. 

• Stys, P., Muhindoa, S., N’simirea, S., Tchumisia, I., Muzuria, P., Balume, B. & Koskinen, J. (2021). Trust, quality, and the network collection experience: A tale of two studies on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Social Networks, 68.

Working papers

• An experimental methodology for studying household financial governance and coping mechanisms in Goma, DRC. Stys, P., Kirk, T., Muhindo, S., Balume, B., Mazuri, P., Tchumisi, I., N’simire, S. & Green, D. Working paper, 1/21 (2021).

Blogs

• 'Applying a Public Authorities Lens to a Water Provision Programme in Goma'. Global Policy Opinion, March 2023.

• 'Land conflicts, water usage and unintended feedback loops: research in Goma, DRC,' Africa at LSE blog, September 2019.

• 'International money guards, linguistics and bedrooms: an interview with researchers in Goma, DRC,' Africa at LSE blog, September 2019. 

• 'Masculinity, unemployment and education in Goma,' Africa at LSE blog, September 2019. 

• 'Establishing trust for intimate longitudinal research in DRC,' Africa at LSE blog, September 2019. 

• 'Karuho poisoning and trust while conducting research in Goma,' Africa at LSE blog, September 2019.

• 'Goma’s smallholders and the role of social networks in household survival,' Africa at LSE blog, August 2019.

• 'Notes from the field: beginning a new research project,' Africa at LSE blog, December 2018.

The project is jointly funded by Mercy Corps and the Centre for Public Authority and International Development. The former provides funding for the Congolese researchers and expenses in the DRC, and the latter the salaries of Pat Stys, Tom Kirk and Duncan Green.