Making water services sustainable

Published on: 24/10/2011

 

Approximately one in three rural water supply systems in developing countries does not function at all or is performing well below its expected level. Failure on this scale represents hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted investment and millions of people who have had to return to fetching dirty drinking water from distant sources – to the detriment of their health, education, and livelihoods. A a global learning initiative called Sustainable Services at Scale, or Triple-S, led by IRC and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has recently published a 13-country study that identifies factors that contribute to, or constrain, the delivery of sustainable rural water services at scale.

The study examined trends in rural water supply in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Colombia, Honduras, and the United States. While many countries are moving from a focus on infrastructure to a 'service delivery approach' – one that would support the reliable and continuous delivery of rural water services a number of common critical gaps remain; The most critical gap is the lack of life-cycle costing (link below) – costing that includes everything from capital investment to minor and major repairs, direct and indirect support costs and the costs of capital for asset replacement. The study showed that financing for post-construction support, back-up for communities, support to local government and learning platforms is seldom accounted for, although these functions have proved to be key to the reliable and sustainable provision of services. Harmonisation and coordination between different actors working in the sector was also an issue across the board, and not only in the more aid-dependent countries. Ten key factors for making water services last The study has identified ten key factors in improving sustainability of rural water supply services

1. Professionalisation of community management, including appropriate legal status for water committees, support services and stronger monitoring and oversight functions.
2. Increased recognition and promotion of alternative service provider options including small-scale private operators and self supply.
3. Sustainability indicators and targets for services delivered and performance of service providers.
4. Standardisation of implementation approaches defining common national-level frameworks – or ‘rules of the game’ – with norms and standards, but with flexibility in implementation.
5. Post-construction support to service providers established and funded to back-up and monitor community management entities, or small private operators.
6. Capacity support to decentralised government (service authorities) covering all key functions in the life-cycle of rural water supply services.
7. Learning and sharing of experience supported at national and decentralised levels.
8. Planning for asset management carried out systematically with financial forecasting and inventory updates.
9. Adequate frameworks for financial planning to cover all life-cycle costs, particularly capital maintenance costs and direct and indirect costs of post-construction support.
10. Regulation of rural services and service providers through appropriate mechanisms/regulatory agents at the local level.

Read more about the Triple-S initiative or WASHCost, an IRC-led research initiative, that has developed new methodologies to better understand and use the costs of providing water, sanitation and hygiene services to rural and peri-urban communities in Ghana, Burkina-Faso, Mozambique and India (Andhra Pradesh).