Skip to main content

Published on: 19/03/2012

Post-construction support has often been claimed to improve the provision of rural water supply services. Little quantitative evidence exists on how this works out in practice. IRC and CINARA carried out a study  to look into the impact of post-construction support on both the performance of rural service providers and of the service level that is eventually provided. Besides, it sought to unravel which aspects of post-construction support are most relevant in creating that impact. This webinar presents the results of this study and goes into the broader discussion on the role of post-construction support on rural water supplies.

There is widespread recognition in literature of the importance of post-construction support to community-based water providers to increase the sustainability of rural water supplies. However, there is little quantitative evidence to confirm this. Moreover, there is little understanding about which aspects of post-construction support are most significant in providing effective and efficient support. This report presents a quantitative analysis of the impact of different post-construction models on the performance of rural water supply service providers and on the levels of service that users ultimately receive in 40 water systems in 3 departments of Colombia. Nearly all the service providers in the study were found to receive some type of support to their management tasks by external agencies. However, those systems receiving more structured post-construction support had better performing service providers than those receiving such support on an ad hoc basis. Key factors explaining the effectiveness of post-construction support are the degree of formality of the support model, having a balanced mix of qualified staff, the frequency of support and having support models that link the service provider also to other support agencies.

Back to
the top