Project performance audit report on the rural water supply and sanitation sector project (loan 1352-ino) in Indonesia

Despite substantial economic growth in the 1980s, at the start of the 1990s only
40 million of the 130.5 million of Indonesia’s rural population benefited from water supply and sanitation (WSS) services. Even then, the facilities were generally limited to shallow wells and hand pumps for water supply and pit latrines for sanitation, often poorly maintained and inappropriately located. The rural population, not served, had to rely on traditional water sources including unprotected hand-dug wells, springs, streams, and rivers together with rainwater harvesting. For sanitation, the population utilized local watercourses and often followed indiscriminate defecation practices.

This ADB project promoted three components : water supply facilities, sanitation facilities, and institutional support and project administration. The objectives were to (i) provide safe, adequate, and reliable WSS services to 3,000 low income rural communities through community-based arrangements; and (ii) support hygiene and sanitation education, water quality surveillance, and community management activities for these communities.
The project area covered all four provinces of Kalimantan (Central, East, South, and West Kalimantan) and all eight provinces of Sumatra (Benkulu, D.I. Aceh, Jambi, Lampung, North Sumatra, Riau, South Sumatra, and West Sumatra)— Eighty percent of the population of the 3,000 communities benefited directly from the project. Project sustainability was achieved through community awareness raising and participation in all stages of the project. The provision of WSS facilities had to result in an overall improvement in the standards of health and productivity of the estimated 3 million beneficiaries and to contribute significantly to the reduction of poverty.