People not projects – the low-technology approach to improving rural water supply

Simply providing hand pumps and conventionally protected wells to small and impoverished rural communities is rarely sustainable. In much of Africa, high-cost lined wells usually do not, in the long term, provide better quality than progressive improvements undertaken by users using local materials and their own funds. Extension workers and policy-makers tend to focus on highly technical solutions to water provision. They need to focus more on offering a wider choice of solutions to communities, including improving existing traditional water supplies and enabling them to implement their choices.

A project co-ordinated by SWL Consultants investigated 2,300 traditional water sources in Zambia and assessed 200 pilot projects in which communities made low-cost improvements to existing sources. The project’s final report questions whether the drive towards achieving universal access to safe water puts too much emphasis on replacing traditional water sources by conventionally protected systems.

When projects are implemented by donors and engineers:

• Instead of being enabled to make informed choices about available and sustainable technologies, communities are only offered high cost, highly subsidised options.
• Outsiders promote communal systems even where most family groups already have semi-private supplies which they prefer to use and are much more willing to invest in.
• Hygiene issues may be ignored as engineering solutions are regarded as safe and foolproof.
• Water sources that are constructed are often not those prioritised by communities in the long term and soon fall into disrepair.
• High standards are set without considerations of sustainability and funds are wasted as systems stop functioning. Subsequent ‘rehabilitation’ programmes amount to deferred maintenance.

Traditional sources are neglected as planners do not regard them as an asset. This is particularly the case with scoopholes and unlined traditionally constructed wells. These sources serve small groups, are constructed in their thousands every year and used by over 180 million people in Africa. Scoopholes often have water equal in quality to fully lined hand-dug wells which come with windlasses, drainage, soakaways and covers. Lining them makes them more reliable, so people do not have to go to more distant sources in the dry season. Providing top lining, apron and drainage to unlined wells reduces levels of contamination by factors of 10 to 100. The costs of such improvements are very low (as little as US$30).

The report notes that:

• Water quality in traditional sources is rarely grossly contaminated.
• Lining of wells provides water with as low a risk of contamination as conventionally protected wells but at one-tenth of the cost.
• Families that own a source are prepared to pay a large part of the cost of improving it. They can also generate income from it, increasing its value to them.
• The concept of low-cost improvements is popular: the number of users increased after improvements were carried out and demand for improvements far exceeds supply.

The initiative has demonstrated that:

• Initial government scepticism about low-cost improvements can be overcome by engaging extension workers and planners in designing surveys and drafting and piloting manuals.
• Scaling up of this approach via co-operation between government, donors and NGOs offers an opportunity to make a significant differenc to the lives of a large number of people, for whom more complicated technologies are neither attainable nor sustainable.
• Low cost improvements should be linked to relevant health promotion. This would provide small communities with the opportunity to reduce the risks to health from poor water use practice.

Low-cost upgrading of traditional sources offers an alternative approach for small scattered communities and a wider choice for larger communities with many existing water sources. These are common throughout Africa and encouraging local initiatives and treating traditional sources as assets need to become part of rural water supply strategies alongside conventional solutions.

Source(s):
‘Community led improvements of rural drinking water supplies: SWL consultants final report’ by Sally Sutton, , September 2002
‘Encouraging Change Sustainable Steps in Water Supply Sanitation and Hygiene’ TALC by Sally Sutton and Hope Nkoloma, April 2003. ISBN 0-9544894-3-8
‘Low Cost Water Source Improvements. Practical Guidelines for Field workers TALC’ by Sally Sutton, Jan 2004, ISBN 0-9543060-3-1

Funded by: DFID KaR 7128

id21 Research Highlight: 21 January 2005

Further Information:
Dr Sally Sutton
SWL Consultants
14 Kennedy Rd
Shrewsbury
Shropshire
SY3 7AB
UK

Contact the contributor: sally@ssutton.fsbusiness.co.uk

SWL Consultants

Other related links:
Community-led improvements to water sources

DFID KaR Water website

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Tackling India’s rural water crisis: new developments in managing water supplies