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Many rural water supplies in sub-Saharan Africa demonstrate high operational failure rates, particularly those using handpumps to extract groundwater. The supply of spare parts for pump maintenance is one of the weak links in the quest for sustainability and there are very few examples of sustainable supply chains throughout the subcontinent. There are a number of key reasons for this, which are specific to the rural African context. These include: the separation of the supply of pumps from the supply of associated spares; low pump density resulting in low profits; poverty and immobility among end-users; inflexible approaches to technology choice; and restrictive policies and maintenance systems. Field research in four African countries—Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia—indicated that the supply of handpump spare parts to rural areas is not a viable stand-alone commercial activity, despite many initiatives with this ultimate aim. There is a critical need for realism in the rural water sector and for implementers to move away from the perceived wisdom that the private-sector alone is the solution to the spare parts conundrum. Integrated service provision, appropriate technology choice and, where necessary, non-profit sector options provide a multifaceted solution that must be embraced if present and future rural water services are to be sustained.

IAccess to safe, sufficient artd affordable water in rural Africa will not increase unless sustainable financing strategies are devclopetl which ensure the sustainability of existing water .services. There is a strong need for international donors and national governments to confront the true costs associated with sustained service provision in order to develop practicable long-term financing mechanisms. This paper presents a systematic approach that can be applied to determine the overall cost of service delivery based on respective cost estimates for operation and maintenance, institutional support, and rehabilitation and expansion. This can then be used to develop a tariff hierarchy which clearly indicates the cost to water users of different levels of cost recovery, and which can be used as a planning tool for implemeniing agencies. Communily Hnancing mechanisms to ensure sustained payment of tariffs must be matched to specific communities and their economic characteristics: a blanket approach is unlikely to function effectively. Innovative strategies are also needed to ensure that the rural poor are adequately served, for which a realistic, targeted and transparent approach to subsidy is required.

Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and Household-Led Water Supply (HLWS) are zero subsidy approaches to water and sanitation service provision that have been recently piloted in Zambia. The increases in access to sanitation and toilet usage levels achieved in one year under CLTS were far greater than any achieved in subsidised programmes of the past. Similarly, HLWS has shown that rural households are willing to invest in their own infrastructure and that they can increase coverage of safe water without external hardware subsidy. The promotion of self-sufficiency rather than dependency is a key component of both approaches, as is the focus on the development of sustainable services rather than the external provision of infrastructure. Zero subsidy strategies have the potential to deliver far more rapid increases in service coverage and higher levels of sustainability than the conventional subsidised approaches that predominate in low-income countries.

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