1001 Smart Cities
🇳🇪 Niamey

CityTaps Prepaid Smart Water Meters

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 1 sourced claim · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

1 sourced claim on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

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The meter was topped up and the tap still ran dry. 47% of surveyed households named malfunction as their main problem — and the rollout stopped at 1,325 of the 15,000 meters planned.

Outcome🪦 Failed
Evidence🔬 Peer-reviewed
what does this mean?The strongest source behind this entry is an independent peer-reviewed or academic study. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run bySociete d'Exploitation des Eaux du Niger (SEEN, Veolia-led lessee) with CityTaps (meter and CTCloud platform) and Orange Niger (mobile money); the network passed to the state-owned Nigerienne des Eaux from 2023
Scale🧪 Pilot
FundingGSMA Mobile for Development grants (2015 seed, 2018 scale-up), with SEEN funding its own follow-on meter order

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 1 more in Niamey · 💧 Water guide · 📡 Data & IoT projects

Smart meters entered Niamey's water offer in 2016: a CityTaps meter on the household connection, topped up by mobile money in any amount, letting SEEN — the Veolia-led lessee of Niger's urban water network — read consumption and cut the flow remotely without sending a meter reader or issuing a bill. Two GSMA grants, a 2015 seed of at least 250 meters and a second in 2018, took it to 1,325 meters covering roughly 2,650 households, and SEEN then ordered 10,000 more. The rollout stopped there. A peer-reviewed field study based on 2022 household surveys found that of the 15,000 meters planned in 2019 only 11% were ever installed, with no growth since, and that 47% of surveyed households named malfunction as their main difficulty — no water at the tap even when the meter was topped up. Then the programme lost every owner it had: Niger's government announced in October 2022 that it would not renew SEEN's lease and handed the network to the state-owned Nigerienne des Eaux, and CityTaps S.A.S. went into compulsory liquidation in April 2025.

Completed 📅 since 2016

📊 Impact

The load-bearing figures come from an independent peer-reviewed field study, not from the vendor. Hassane Younsa Harouna (Mu Kara Sani N deg 40, December 2024), surveying Niamey households in 2022, writes that "sur les 15 000 compteurs prevus en 2019, seulement 11 % ont ete installes soit 1 325" with no growth since, and that "47 % des menages ont declare le dysfonctionnement comme la principale difficulte" — the tap dry despite a credited meter. He puts the cost of going further at "au moins 18 milliards de F CFA" to replace 100,000 meters, a projection of what a citywide rollout would cost rather than money spent. Against that stand the programme's own numbers: GSMA's grantee record gives 1,325 meters, about 2,650 households and 13,250 direct beneficiaries, and CityTaps itself reported on the FinDev Gateway blog in April 2020 that "43% des utilisateurs CTSuite sont devenus utilisateurs de Mobile Money" and that 95% of those already using mobile money transacted more often — vendor-reported and never independently audited. No source published since the handover says whether the 1,325 meters still work.

🎓 Lesson

Prepayment fixed billing for a utility that could not fix supply. The meters did exactly what they were sold to do — collect before delivery, with no meter reader and no bill — and nearly half the surveyed households still called them a malfunction, because a credited balance is worthless when the network is dry. That is the same wall Nairobi's water ATMs hit: the hardware works, the pipes behind it do not. The second lesson is about ownership. Within three years the programme lost its lessee, its vendor and its grant, which is the standing risk of a pilot financed by a startup and a donor rather than out of the utility's own budget.

📡 Data & IoTWaterSensors & IoT

Sources

↗ Hassane Younsa Harouna, "Les compteurs d'eau intelligents a Niamey (Niger) : une diffusion compromise !", Mu Kara Sani N deg 40 (peer-reviewed)Published 1 December 2024 archived copyCarries every load-bearing figure: introduction in 2016 ("en 2016, les compteurs intelligents ont ete introduits dans l'offre de l'eau a Niamey"), 11%/1,325 of 15,000 planned, 47% of households naming malfunction, and the 18 billion FCFA projection for 100,000 meters. Based on 2022 fieldwork with household surveys and semi-structured interviews. This article dates the end of the SEEN contract to December 2023, while Air Info reports the government's non-renewal decision of 19 October 2022 — the discrepancy is left unresolved in the entry, which states only the decision and the handover.
↗ GSMA Mobile for Development — Digital Utilities grantee record, CityTapsSupports the 2015 seed grant for at least 250 meters with SEEN and Orange Niger, the 2018 grant scaling to 1,325 meters, the count of about 2,650 households and 13,250 direct beneficiaries, and SEEN's follow-on order of 10,000 CTSuites. The page returned HTTP 403 to direct fetching; its existence and its coverage of these claims were confirmed through the search index, per the reviewer protocol's 403 fallback.
↗ Isabelle Poulet (CityTaps), "Au Niger, CityTaps revolutionne l'acces a l'eau courante avec des compteurs intelligents prepayes", FinDev Gateway blog, 14 April 2020 (vendor source)Describes the CTSuite mechanism — mobile money top-up of any amount, CTCloud giving the operator payment and consumption data — and carries the two mobile money adoption figures (43% new mobile money users, 95% of existing users transacting more). Written by a CityTaps employee, so attributed in the entry rather than stated.
↗ Air Info (Agadez, Nigerien press), "Niger : fin de contrat pour le groupe francais Veolia", 1 December 2023Nigerien primary press for the end of the SEEN/Veolia affermage: "le gouvernement du Niger a decide de ne plus renouveler le contrat d'Affermage pour la Societe d'Exploitation des Eaux du Niger (SEEN) du groupe francais VEOLIA", decision dated 19 October 2022, with La Nigerienne des Eaux named as the successor operator.
↗ LaunchBase Africa, "CityTaps' $6M Water-Tech Dream Runs Dry as Kenyan Arm Enters Liquidation", 29 July 2025Supports the vendor's end: CityTaps S.A.S. entered compulsory liquidation on 14 April 2025 and the Kenyan arm held a creditors' voluntary liquidation meeting on 24 July 2025. Single-source for the liquidation dates; corroborated only by the company's own domain fr.citytaps.org failing to resolve (DNS ENOTFOUND) when checked on 7 August 2026.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2016. 4 of 5 sources carry a publication date, from 14 April 2020 to 29 July 2025.

When the sources were published

  1. FinDev Gateway (CGAP) · international organisationIsabelle Poulet (CityTaps), "Au Niger, CityTaps revolutionne l'acces a l'eau courante avec des compteurs intelligents prepayes", FinDev Gateway blog, 14 April 2020 (vendor source)
  2. Air Info · pressAir Info (Agadez, Nigerien press), "Niger : fin de contrat pour le groupe francais Veolia", 1 December 2023
  3. Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines (IRSH), Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey · researchHassane Younsa Harouna, "Les compteurs d'eau intelligents a Niamey (Niger) : une diffusion compromise !", Mu Kara Sani N deg 40 (peer-reviewed)
  4. LaunchBase Africa · pressLaunchBase Africa, "CityTaps' $6M Water-Tech Dream Runs Dry as Kenyan Arm Enters Liquidation", 29 July 2025

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Sources last read
  2. Entered the record

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 1 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 1 addressable claim, 5 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 1

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-6b0d95ad2c952c6e quantitative
sur les 15 000 compteurs prevus en 2019, seulement 11 % ont ete installes soit 1 325
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The peer-reviewed field study's own quoted finding: of the 15,000 meters planned for 2019, only 11% (1,325) were installed, with no growth since.
Caveat
Quoted in the original French from the peer-reviewed source; the entry's English framing paraphrases the study around it.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Hassane Younsa Harouna, "Les compteurs d'eau intelligents a Niamey (Niger) : une diffusion compromise !", Mu Kara Sani N deg 40 (peer-reviewed)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-20-source-dates effective 2026-08-07 · created 2026-08-20

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:d7ede7814e102322c5aaa58ed1395f2885af399eb5c0bf63273b01341db84215
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
1
of 1 claims mapped
5
source dossiers
4
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Societe d'Exploitation des Eaux du Niger (SEEN, Veolia-led lessee) with CityTaps (meter and CTCloud platform) and Orange Niger (mobile money); the network passed to the state-owned Nigerienne des Eaux from 2023
Actor types
utility, private
Funding model
mixed
Funding description
GSMA Mobile for Development grants (2015 seed, 2018 scale-up), with SEEN funding its own follow-on meter order
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

5 source dossiers

Hassane Younsa Harouna, "Les compteurs d'eau intelligents a Niamey (Niger) : une diffusion compromise !", Mu Kara Sani N deg 40 (peer-reviewed) mukarasani.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-f2b78e7767f4d518
Publisher
Name not classified · mukarasani.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2024-12-01
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Carries every load-bearing figure: introduction in 2016 ("en 2016, les compteurs intelligents ont ete introduits dans l'offre de l'eau a Niamey"), 11%/1,325 of 15,000 planned, 47% of households naming malfunction, and the 18 billion FCFA projection for 100,000 meters. Based on 2022 fieldwork with household surveys and semi-structured interviews. This article dates the end of the SEEN contract to December 2023, while Air Info reports the government's non-renewal decision of 19 October 2022 — the discrepancy is left unresolved in the entry, which states only the decision and the handover.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
GSMA Mobile for Development — Digital Utilities grantee record, CityTaps gsma.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-a67bb108e0317320
Publisher
Name not classified · gsma.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Supports the 2015 seed grant for at least 250 meters with SEEN and Orange Niger, the 2018 grant scaling to 1,325 meters, the count of about 2,650 households and 13,250 direct beneficiaries, and SEEN's follow-on order of 10,000 CTSuites. The page returned HTTP 403 to direct fetching; its existence and its coverage of these claims were confirmed through the search index, per the reviewer protocol's 403 fallback.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Isabelle Poulet (CityTaps), "Au Niger, CityTaps revolutionne l'acces a l'eau courante avec des compteurs intelligents prepayes", FinDev Gateway blog, 14 April 2020 (vendor source) findevgateway.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-5d88a91d46e3f0ba
Publisher
Name not classified · findevgateway.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2020-04-14
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Describes the CTSuite mechanism — mobile money top-up of any amount, CTCloud giving the operator payment and consumption data — and carries the two mobile money adoption figures (43% new mobile money users, 95% of existing users transacting more). Written by a CityTaps employee, so attributed in the entry rather than stated.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Air Info (Agadez, Nigerien press), "Niger : fin de contrat pour le groupe francais Veolia", 1 December 2023 airinfoagadez.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-655f3442794d4012
Publisher
Name not classified · airinfoagadez.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-12-01
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Nigerien primary press for the end of the SEEN/Veolia affermage: "le gouvernement du Niger a decide de ne plus renouveler le contrat d'Affermage pour la Societe d'Exploitation des Eaux du Niger (SEEN) du groupe francais VEOLIA", decision dated 19 October 2022, with La Nigerienne des Eaux named as the successor operator.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
LaunchBase Africa, "CityTaps' $6M Water-Tech Dream Runs Dry as Kenyan Arm Enters Liquidation", 29 July 2025 launchbaseafrica.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-51f00c2dbc8ec5f2
Publisher
Name not classified · launchbaseafrica.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-07-29
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Supports the vendor's end: CityTaps S.A.S. entered compulsory liquidation on 14 April 2025 and the Kenyan arm held a creditors' voluntary liquidation meeting on 24 July 2025. Single-source for the liquidation dates; corroborated only by the company's own domain fr.citytaps.org failing to resolve (DNS ENOTFOUND) when checked on 7 August 2026.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇰🇪 Water ATMs: Prepaid Dispensers in Nairobi's Informal Settlements · Nairobi Both put prepaid water hardware into households the utility could not reliably supply — the meter worked, the pipe behind it did not. 🇨🇴 Prepaid Smart Water Metering (Agua Prepago) · Medellín Prepaid water, opposite outcomes: Medellin's utility kept scaling its own; Niamey's stalled when grant, lessee and vendor all vanished. 🇳🇪 Niamey Urban Fibre Loop — Trans-Saharan Backbone Project · Niamey Same city, two donor bets: the AfDB fibre loop is still being built, the grant-funded water meters stopped at 11% of plan.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision🚱 Running out of water📖 District metering area (DMA)📖 Non-revenue water (NRW)📖 Prepaid metering
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “CityTaps Prepaid Smart Water Meters” — Niamey, Niger. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/niamey-prepaid-water-meters/ (last verified 2026-08-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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