Supporting Rural Water Supply: Moving towards a Service Delivery Approach - Softcover

Lockwood, Harold; Smits, Stef

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853397296 ISBN 13: 9781853397295

Verlag: Practical Action Publishing - IPSUK, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Collectively, billions of dollars have been invested in the provision of rural water supply systems in developing countries over the past three decades. Although progress is being made and rates of coverage are increasing, users often find that, once installed, water supply systems are poorly maintained and eventually break down, leaving them with an unreliable and disrupted water supply. Supporting Rural Water Supply takes a critical look and asks why we have been unable to provide a sustainable water service to rural people for so long? What are the critical success factors in the areas where there has been good progress? How can we support the adoption of a service delivery approach to rural water supply - one that moves beyond implementing infrastructure projects to delivering a reliable and indefinite service? This book brings together findings from 13 country studies which were carried out as part of a global learning initiative - Sustainable Services at Scale, or Triple-S. It offers insights into ways countries and individual organisations can move towards a service delivery approach step by step. Published in association with IRC.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Harold Lockwood is the director of the UK consulting firm Aguaconsult, and is an expert in water supply and sanitation with over twenty years of international experience.

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Supporting Rural Water Supply

Moving Towards a Service Delivery Approach

By Harold Lockwood, Stef Smits

Practical Action Publishing Ltd

Copyright © 2011 IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and Aguaconsult
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-85339-729-5

Contents

Figures, viii, 
Tables, ix, 
Boxes, x, 
Acknowledgments, xi, 
About the authors, xii, 
Executive summary, 1, 
1. Introduction, 11, 
2. Methodology and conceptual framework, 15, 
3. Country sketches, 29, 
4. Findings from the country studies, 57, 
5. Conclusions and recommendations, 137, 
References, 153, 
Annexes, 161, 
Annex A: List of abbreviations, acronyms and non-English terms, 161, 
Annex B: Glossary, 167, 
Annex C: Analytical tool for country studies, 170, 
Annex D: Triple-S principles framework, 176, 
Annex E: List of country reports and literature studies, 178, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Background

During the past two to three decades there has been relative success in providing new rural water infrastructure – building the physical systems – and driving increased coverage levels. However, despite this positive trend, there has to a large extent been a failure to achieve sustainable solutions. Tens of millions of rural people face continuing problems with systems that fail prematurely, leading to wasted resources and false expectations. For many of those who supposedly already enjoy an improved service, the reality is one of poor continuity, poor quality and premature failure.

Between 1990 and 2006, the absolute number of un-served people across 19 sub-Saharan African countries increased from 29 million to 272 million (RWSN, 2009). In part this is due to population growth, but many of those who supposedly count as having been 'served' actually have systems that are now not working properly or have failed completely. Both population expansion and migration patterns have led to more urbanisation, but also an increase in more densely populated rural villages or rural growth centres, with accompanying increased demand for higher levels of service. However, it is still the rural population that continues to suffer most from poor services; the Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) reports that 84% of people without access to improved drinking water sources live in rural areas (WHO/UNICEF, 2010).

Already in the early 1990s, estimates suggested that at any given moment, 30–40% of rural water supply systems in developing countries were not working (Evans, 1992). This rate has not changed much since then and although figures vary, studies from different countries indicate that somewhere between 30% and 40% of systems, particularly handpumps, still either do not function at all or are working at sub-optimal levels. The Rural Water Supply Network indicates an average rate of 36% non-functionality for hand-pumps in sub-Saharan Africa (RWSN, 2009). A more recent study by WaterAid in Tanzania indicates that only two years following installation 25% of systems are already non-functional (Taylor, 2009). Failures on this scale represent significant levels of wasted investment, probably many hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 20 years. In gravity-fed piped systems the issue is often not full collapse of services, as they are technically less prone to become fully non-functional, but providing services well below the expected performance level.

Poor sustainability of rural water supplies has been recognised for some time, and a number of management approaches have come and gone with the aim of addressing these problems; the predominant model of community management has been adopted as formal sector policy in many countries. At the same time, most efforts and resources in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector continue to go into the construction of new infrastructure, which undoubtedly is needed. However, such investment often appears to be at the expense of the sustainability of services already in place. A tipping point may now have been reached with more and more national governments and development partners beginning to recognise the scale of the problems associated with poor sustainability and the real threat this presents to achieving the WASH Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The objectives of Triple-S

It is against this backdrop that the Sustainable Services at Scale (or Triple-S) initiative was developed. Started in late 2008, this six-year learning initiative has the overall goal of contributing to improved sustainability of rural water services, and bringing about greater harmonisation through increased sector capacity. Triple-S aims to act as a catalyst for transforming the approaches in rural water supply from one focused on the implementation of water systems, to the provision of indefinite and reliable rural water services delivered at scale. The initiative is managed by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) in the Netherlands, and works in partnership with international, national and local partners1, working initially in two focus countries – Ghana and Uganda – and expanding to Burkina Faso in 2011.

As part of the initiative's start-up, a research study was conducted between late 2009 and the second quarter of 2010. The main objective of the research study was to review and better understand the trends in rural water supply, and to identify factors that appear to contribute to or constrain the delivery of sustainable rural water services at scale. The study also sought to identify organisational incentives and barriers that shape the way in which sector institutions approach rural water services. The study was carried out in 13 countries across the globe (see Annex E for the full references of all country studies). In addition, literature reviews on into rural service provision more broadly (Butterworth, 2010) and on aid harmonisation at national and sub-national levels (de la Harpe, 2011a) were carried out. Finally, this book has been informed by a symposium on sustainable services at scale held from 13-15 April 2010 in Kampala, where many of the experiences reported here were presented and discussed, alongside work by other sector practitioners and researchers in the field (see Smits et al., 2010 for the proceedings; and Moriarty and Verdemato, 2010 for the discussion report).

As well as carrying out the studies and collation of views and information, there was an explicit goal of providing follow-up to the research in a number of countries through projects and activities of IRC and partners, with a view to generate further sector debate and action in the area of improving sustainability of services.

Structure of this book

This book presents a synthesis of the 13 country study findings and the literature reviews, and is structured around five principal sections as follows:

• Chapter 1 provides an introduction.

• Chapter 2 sets out the methodologies adopted in the country studies, and explains underlying concepts and terminologies used in the analysis of the findings.

• Chapter 3 provides a brief summary of the state of the rural water sector in each of the 13 countries.

• Chapter 4 presents the main findings from a comparative analysis across the country studies, addressing the current status of sustainability, progress on decentralisation and sector reform, the definition of Service Delivery Models (SDMs) and experiences with professionalisation of community management. This chapter also...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Practical Action Publishing - IPSUK
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1853397296
• ISBN 13: 9781853397295
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 200
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland