Rural water supply in Zambia: local solutions are best

Many rural Africans prefer to get water from traditionally dug wells and scoopholes, which they manage and maintain themselves. Policymakers, however, tend to regard such sources as a liability that ought to be replaced by community-wide schemes. Research in Zambia has found widespread grassroots demand for small-scale water supply and has developed models to help communities achieve them.

A report from the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP)argues that self-supply can improve availability of water from traditionalsources and from rainwater harvesting, reduce contamination, promote betterstorage practices and offer householders a choice of technology, withoutbecoming significantly dependent on outside funds.

Strategies to achieve the Millennium DevelopmentGoal for water supply assume that existing communal facilities are functioning.The reality, however, is that despite widespread construction andrehabilitation of communal water points up to a half are likely to benon-operational at any given time. This is due not only to breakdown of pumps (anda lack of expertise, spare parts or funds to fix them) but also to no feelingof real ownership caused by forcing upon people remote technologies that theyare not well-equipped to manage.

The self-supply concept combines communityempowerment with low-cost technologies to improve water quality, ease of accessto and lifting water. In Zambia installationsare popular, replicable and affordable because they rely on local skills,materials and technology principles. Step-by-step increments are possible – perhapspartial lining followed by full brick lining, and laterthe purchase of a windlass and subsequent construction of ground storagefacilities.

Many households have reaped the benefits of both animproved domestic water supply and the productive benefits offered by access towater for small-scale enterprises such as horticulture, brewing, brick makingor food processing.

Evidence from Zambia suggeststhat:

• Even limited interim protective measures - such aspartial cement lining of wells or clay lining of scoopholes - can significantlyimprove water quality: monitoring indicated a significant drop in fecalcoliform counts.
• Per capita subsidies are lower for self-supplyinitiatives than for conventional solutions – around US $5 per capita asagainst $20 – especially where households themselves own and invest in thewater sources.
• Large subsidies for capital costs of communalprojects mask the direct relationship between capital and long-term recurrentcosts, making it difficult for communities to judge what technology they canafford to maintain.
• When investment is kept within a small group, andmanagement and land ownership are clearly defined, water can be used not onlyfor consumption but also for irrigation, brick and beer-making and otherproductive activities.
• Unlike communal supplies, which are often seen as adrain on the household purse, self supply systems often provide a convenientsupply and an income for its users.
• Low-cost solutions can invigorate rural economies byproviding work for well diggers, masons and carpenters rather than externalcontractors.

Self-supply principles are being adopted by manyZambian and donor agencies. Zimbabwe hasupgraded 50,000 family wells and the concept has been piloted successfully in SierraLeone. Furtherdissemination of ideas and approaches can be promoted by:

• Ensuring that government extension workers areinvolved in research so they can see for themselves that simpler technology doesnot necessarily mean a backwards step towards unsafe water.
• Realising that time is needed to overcome resistance– from water specialists and households – to time-honoured ways of collectingand storing water. Ideas will need to be piloted and demonstrated.
• Supporting international networks concerned withrural water supply and drinking water to spread information about household-levelsolutions.