Community management today : the role of communities in the management of improved water supply systems

To consolidate desk research and field studies and to provide guidance on community management of water supply and sanitation systems, IRC in collaboration with UNDP, UNICEF, WHO and the UNDP/World Bank Water and Sanitation Program organized an international workshop in November 1992 called: The Role of Communities in the Management of Improved Water Supply Systems. This document brings together the experiences shared during that workshop and the results of desk research and it also highlights the key issues involved. The first chapter points out that community management is needed for reliability, sustainability and replicability of water supply and sanitation projects. Chapter two describes community management from the perspective of the partners involved, while the third presents some guidelines on putting community management into practice. Chapter four touches on key issues, such as political will, strategic planning, policy and legislation, decentralization, training and education, public education and social marketing, and monitoring and evaluation, which governments should take into account to create an enabling environment for community management. The final chapter identifies a number of gaps in knowledge which require further study to substantiate the guidance on the most effective ways of implementing successful community management. Numerous field cases are quoted in the boxes throughout the document.