The Impact and Sustainability of Community Water Supply and Sanitation Programmes in Developing Countries

Abstract

Sound strategies for community water supply and sanitation programmes in developing countries should be based on (i) a clear understanding of the existing problems, (ii) the beneficial impacts achievable, and (iii) the factors which determine sustainability. The impacts of many water and sanitation programmes are limited, and many systems break down and are abandoned prematurely; only limited impacts are achievable in the short term without greatly increased investment. Sustainability, in the sense of continued delivery and uptake of services, is threatened by numerous attitudinal, institutional and economic factors, and community participation approaches alone are no guarantee of success. The key to sustainability is that all stakeholders involved in consumption/use, maintenance, cost recovery, and continuing support, perceive it in their best interests to deliver high-quality services.This paper, based upon the authors' experiences in Africa and Asia, proposes new sets of programme aims and objectives in relation to impact and sustainability, which can be used in programme design, monitoring and evaluation. It also makes longer-term recommendations to external support agencies.

Sustainability of Water Safety Plans Developed in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…In order to evaluate and sustain water and sanitation supplies in developing countries, the international literature offers some proposals such as (i) create a "sustainability chain", consisting of motivation, maintenance, cost recovery and continuing support elements [9]; (ii) divide water and sanitation projects into sequential steps [10]; (iii) base the project on three sustainability components: Effective community demand, local financing and cost recovery, dynamic operation and maintenance [11].…”

Using Causal Loop Diagramming to Explore the Drivers of the Sustained Functionality of Rural Water Services in Timor-Leste

“…While CBM schemes often appear sensible in many rural water management contexts, there are inherent technical, social and economic constraints that introduce additional complexity and often inhibit sustained water service provision. In this case, "technical" constraints generally relate to the community's ability to properly operate and repair the water system [17,18]; "economic" constraints refer to the capacity of the community to afford O & M costs [19,20]; and lastly, "social" constraints generally refer to such aspects as the perceived demand for services, community organization and community member satisfaction with the intervention [3,[21][22][23]. As a result of these frequently confounding constraints, many critics state communities inherently lack the necessary capacity to maintain their water systems without the help of the external support of governments or NGOs.…”

“…Thus, it is increasingly recognised that there is a need to evaluate the longer term impacts and sustainability of water supply interventions [3,[7][8][9][10]. Unfortunately, evaluating sustainability is a concept that is in significant tension with the more concrete and measurable criteria that donors currently use to assess the success of programs [11].…”

“…Water supply interventions in developing nations have historically had issues with a lack of sustained and positive project outcomes [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Thus, it is increasingly recognised that there is a need to evaluate the longer term impacts and sustainability of water supply interventions [3,[7][8][9][10].…”

Multi-criteria evaluation of sources for self-help domestic water supply

“…Water from such sources is responsible for a wide variety of sicknesses such as cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, shigellosis, salmonellosis, ascariasis, schistosomiasis, etc. (Ukpong and Okon 2013;Carter et al 1999;John-Dewole 2012). Besides causing water stress and diseases, water shortage can result in decline in hygiene and overall quality of life.…”