This MUStRAIN case study examines whether giving communities a greater say in the design of their water supply systems leads to a different mix of uses.
Published on: 31/12/2013
The Community Managed Project approach (CMP) gives water users the mandate and resources to construct their own water supply systems. This decentralisation of decision-making also potentially supports more multiple use of systems like livestock watering and irrigation as well as domestic use.
Water committees manage the facility construction from beginning to end, so there is no handover of the facilities after completion, unlike projects managed by local authorities or NGOs. The design of these facilities is mainly focused towards domestic water supply, but when the water source is sufficient (usually with springs and not with hand-dug wells), cattle-watering facilities are common additional components in the design.
As the CMP approach builds capacity and successfully engages the private sectors and user communities from the onset, it offers opportunities for end-users to pinpoint their needs to be incorporated in the design. Hence, the CMP approach can be used to introduce and promote multiple-use water services from project initiation through planning and implementation to the operation and maintenance phase. This has potential, albeit practice is limited to date, enabling users to maximize their benefits from the proposed WASH facilities.
This case study was developed as part of a series of case studies under the MUStRAIN project.
