Water system hardware and management rehabilitation: Qualitative evidence from Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia

Abstract

Background Sufficient, safe, continuously available drinking water is important for human health and development, yet one in three handpumps in sub-Saharan Africa are non-functional at any given time. Community management, coupled with access to external technical expertise and spare parts, is a widely promoted model for rural water supply management. However, there is limited evidence describing how community management can address common hardware and management failures of rural water systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Methods We identified hardware and management rehabilitation pathways using qualitative data from 267 interviews and 57 focus group discussions in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia. Study participants were water committee members, community members, and local leaders in 18 communities (six in each study country) with water systems managed by a water committee and supported by World Vision (WV), an international non-governmental organization (NGO). Government, WV or private sector employees engaged in supporting the water systems were also interviewed. Inductive analysis was used to allow for pathways to emerge from the data, based on the perspectives and experiences of study participants. Results Four hardware rehabilitation pathways were identified, based on the types of support used in rehabilitation. Types of support were differentiated as community or external. External support includes financial and/or technical support from government or WV employees. Community actor understanding of who to contact when a hardware breakdown occurs and easy access to technical experts were consistent reasons for rapid rehabilitation for all hardware rehabilitation pathways. Three management rehabilitation pathways were identified. All require the involvement of community leaders and were best carried out when the action was participatory. Conclusions The rehabilitation pathways show how available resources can be leveraged to restore hardware breakdowns and management failures for rural water systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Governments, NGOs, and private sector actors can better build capacity of community actors by focusing on their role in rehabilitating hardware and management and to ensure that they are able to quickly contact external support actors when needed for rehabilitation. Using qualitative and participatory methods allows for insight into rapid rehabilitation of hardware and management.

Seasonality, water use and community management of water systems in rural settings: Qualitative evidence from Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia

“…The goal of this study was to use in-depth interviews and FGDs with various stakeholders to further our understanding of the nuanced relationships between people, their water systems and the environment. Although we selected systems which were identified as 'successful' using an indicator of functionality, we found that functionality was an insufficient measure and that the lifetime of a successful system comprised cycles of use, breakdown and rehabilitation (Fisher et al, 2015;Klug et al, 2017). A successful water system can therefore be thought of not as a system that does not experience failure, but as a system that is managed in a way that allows for quick rehabilitation and continued use.…”

“…Current resource mobilization practices for communitymanaged rural water systems are considered to be insufficient for capital costs or major repairs (Foster & Hope, 2016). Inability to mobilize resources can seriously delay or disallow repairs, meaning that the community loses access (Foster & Hope, 2016;Klug et al, 2017). Many external support actors place a heavy emphasis on regular fee collection, which is considered to be a significant determinant of water system sustainability Fisher et al, 2015;Foster & Hope, 2016;Whittington et al, 2009).…”

“…The sustainability of community-managed water systems is dependent on both technical characteristics of the system and the management characteristics of the water committee. Klug et al (Klug et al, 2017) examined the pathways through which a water committee could successfully rehabilitate a broken-down system, as well as the obstacles which hinder system repairs. The study found that committees could rehabilitate systems through several pathways, but all of these required the mobilization of financial resources and most included support from external support actors.…”

“…Seasonality can also affect the functionality of community-managed water systems in sub-Saharan Africa (White et al, 1972). Most of sub-Saharan Africa experiences a long dry season (ranging from 4 to 11 months/year) where there is less than 25 mm of rainfall per month (MacDonald et al, 2009). There is a substantial decrease in the quantity of water available during the dry season.…”

Factors Influencing Revenue Collection for Preventative Maintenance of Community Water Systems: A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

“…These studies identified similar conditions that influenced the sustainability of rural water service delivery, despite differences in methodology and geographical context. In particular, revenue collection from water users has been shown to be a well-established cornerstone of a strong water system management scheme [2,3], and is widely regarded as critical to sustainability [1,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”