Enabling beneficiaries for sustainable community-based water and sanitation projects in the Central Visayas Region

A project to support, develop and sustain water and sanitation programs in the Central Visayan Region of the Philippines, jointly executed by the Governments of Australia and the Philippines, sees community participation as the key principle in the implementation of its schemes. The approach is aimed at the development of self-reliant and functional water and sanitation organizations that are formed and prepared to own and manage the water systems. The project seeks to improve the health, living conditions and economic status of selected communities through the provision of domestic water and sanitation systems. Between 1991 and 1997, the project will construct 2000 water systems to serve more than half a million rural dwellers in the Region and about 400 community-based water and sanitation associations will be organized to act as owners, operators, managers and maintainers of the water systems. After outlining the project's philosophy and goals, this document describes its components - communities, infrastructure, planning and monitoring, which are all unified by the four recurring themes of sustainability, poverty alleviation, community and environmental health, and the role of women in the development process. Diagrams and charts detail the project's conceptual framework and implementation strategy. Project funding is also discussed. The document then outlines project accomplishments to date, analyses problem areas, and discusses what was learned from the experience. It concludes that during the four and a half years of the Central Visayas Water and Sanitation Project's existence, despite some problems, modest accomplishments have confirmed the appropriateness of the approach, process, and methods used for development in rural areas.