Rwanda “is one of only four countries in Africa which look set to achieve Millennium Development Goal 7 to ensure environmental sustainability, which includes halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation,” Inter Press Service reports in an article examining hygiene and sanitation in the country. The other three countries are Mozambique, Ghana and Sierra Leone, the news service notes.

“Since 2007, the issue of hygiene and sanitation in rural areas has been of major concern as Rwanda’s government reduced spending on medical care for patients affected by poor hygiene and sanitation diseases across the country,” IPS writes, adding that the “[g]overnment’s aim is that each household, wherever possible, should have access to its own sanitation facility” (Twahirwa, 7/22).