End-user participation in drinking water management through Awareness, Education, and Resources: Tools for Water Partnerships

Abstract

The long-term success of safely managed drinking water systems requires participation from many stakeholders, especially the water users, but also community leaders, technical experts, health practitioners, teachers, NGOs, and others. However, people may need to be empowered before they can be confident or able to contribute to meaningful decision making or governance roles in Water Partnerships. Discussions with water leaders from nine organizations on four continents revealed surprisingly a similar three-step approach to empowering end-user participation in water management. The first step is creating the Awareness of local water challenges and their impact on health. The second step is Education about the options for safe water. Together, Awareness + Education lead to people understanding their challenges and being able to devise a locally appropriate solution. The third step is Resources for water action. Through Awareness, Education, and Resources, water stakeholders including households can be empowered to participate in safely managing drinking water solutions.