Digital Water Platform (Dhaamiye)
The Digital Water Platform (Dhaamiye) connects households in underserved areas without piped water access with certified water vendors through a mobile-based ordering system. By connecting customers, water vendors, and local water authorities, the platform aims to strengthen oversight and accountability across the water supply chain while improving service delivery for underserved areas.
The platform consists of three integrated components:
1. Customer app: Enables users to find certified vendors, order and track water deliveries, make payments, and provide feedback.To ensure inclusivity, the platform also supports low-tech access through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services for users with limited digital literacy or limited access to smartphones or mobile data. Users can also place their orders directly through the call centre.
2. Vendor app: Supports vendors in managing orders, deliveries, availability, routing, and payments, while strengthening trust through certification and customer ratings.
3. Administrator dashboard: Enables local water authorities to manage vendors, monitor transactions, prices and deliveries, address complaints, and use real-time service data to support planning and oversight.
The platform can be adapted to different contexts through customizable languages, currencies, payment methods, and vendor configurations. Local payment and USSD services require country-specific integration and testing.
Potential partners are invited to deploy and/or adapt the Digital Water Platform to a new context and explore its application to local water-service needs. In collaboration with UNITAC, selected partners will contribute local knowledge and use cases to further develop the platform and support more inclusive and sustainable access to urban water services.
Requirements
1. General Partner Requirements
For applications involving collaboration between governmental and non-governmental entities, the following partnership arrangements are accepted:
- Consortium: A consortium of governmental and non-governmental entities, for example involving a civil society organisation, urban planning lab, or similar organisation.
- Cooperation agreement: A formal cooperation between a governmental and a non-governmental entity, documented through an enclosed Letter of Intent.
The local partner is expected to ensure:
- Local stakeholder engagement: Established connections with relevant stakeholders and the ability to facilitate access to the community data required for the project.
- Data access: Access to relevant datasets or the ability to acquire the data required for the project.
- Tool adoption: Relevant staff and technical teams with the capacity and commitment to adopt and actively use the tool in relevant service delivery and institutional processes.
2. Resource Requirements
The local partner is expected to allocate or secure the following resources and capacities:
- Connectivity: Reliable network operators and connectivity infrastructure to support implementation and operation of the tool.
- Local coordination: A designated focal point to coordinate activities, facilitate stakeholder engagement, support communication between project partners, and oversee local implementation.
- Local implementation capacity: A local team with the capacity to support the development and deployment of the tool.
- Project coordination and research: A designated focal point for approximately 6 months to support project coordination, data collection, user testing, and research alongside the UNITAC team.
- Technical support: A local data scientist or IT focal point for approximately 6 months to support tool development alongside the UNITAC team.
- Long-term operational capacity: Sufficient capacity and commitment to operate, maintain, and integrate the tool into relevant institutional processes following implementation.
3. Technical Requirements
Based on our experience with previous implementations of the Digital Water Platform, we recommend the following technical requirements from the local partner for successful implementation.
- Cloud server meeting the following specifications:
- Operating system: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
- RAM: Minimum 4 GB; 8 GB recommended
- CPU: Minimum 4 vCPUs; 8 vCPUs recommended
- Storage: Minimum 128 GB SSD; 256 GB SSD recommended
- Telecom/USSD services: Access to a suitable local telecom/USSD provider and the capacity to support the required integration and testing.
- Payment services: Access to a suitable local payment service provider and the capacity to support the required integration and testing.
- Domain: One public domain with 1–2 subdomains available for deployment.
- App deployment: Access to the necessary Google Play and Apple App Store developer accounts to deploy the Vendor and User applications.
SSL certificates: Required SSL certificates for the domain and subdomains.
Who is it for?
- Local and national governments
- Utilities operators
