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 traditional sources and from rainwater harvesting, reduce contamination, promote better storage practices and offer householders a choice of technology, without becoming significantly dependent on outside funds.

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

The self-supply concept combines community empowerment with low-cost technologies to improve water quality, ease of access to and lifting water. In Zambia installations are popular, replicable and affordable because they rely on local skills, materials and technology principles. Step-by-step increments are possible – perhaps partial lining followed by full brick lining, and later the purchase of a windlass and subsequent construction of ground storage facilities.

Many households have reaped the benefits of both an improved domestic water supply and the productive benefits offered by access to water for small-scale enterprises such as horticulture, brewing, brick making or food processing.

Evidence from Zambia suggests that:

• Even limited interim protective measures - such as partial cement lining of wells or clay lining of scoopholes - can significantly improve water quality: monitoring indicated a significant drop in fecal coliform counts.
• Per capita subsidies are lower for self-supply initiatives than for conventional solutions – around US $5 per capita as against $20 – especially where households themselves own and invest in the water sources.
• Large subsidies for capital costs of communal projects mask the direct relationship between capital and long-term recurrent costs, making it difficult for communities to judge what technology they can afford to maintain.
• When investment is kept within a small group, and management and land ownership are clearly defined, water can be used not only for consumption but also for irrigation, brick and beer-making and other productive activities.
• Unlike communal supplies, which are often seen as a drain on the household purse, self supply systems often provide a convenient supply and an income for its users.
• Low-cost solutions can invigorate rural economies by providing work for well diggers, masons and carpenters rather than external contractors.

Self-supply principles are being adopted by many Zambian and donor agencies. Zimbabwe has upgraded 50,000 family wells and the concept has been piloted successfully in Sierra Leone. Further dissemination of ideas and approaches can be promoted by:

• Ensuring that government extension workers are involved in research so they can see for themselves that simpler technology does not 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 collecting and storing water. Ideas will need to be piloted and demonstrated.
• Supporting international networks concerned with rural water supply and drinking water to spread information about household-level solutions.

Source(s):
‘Self supply: a fresh approach to water for rural populations’ Water and Sanitation Program Field Note by Sally Sutton, November 2004 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 6 June 2005

Further Information:
Sally Sutton
SWL Consultants
14 Kennedy Road
Shrewsbury SY3 7AB
UK

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

SWL Consultants, UK

Water and Sanitation Program, Africa
World Bank
Hill Park Building
Upper Hill Road
PO Box 30577
Nairobi
Kenya
www.wsp.org

Tel:   + 254 20 322-6306
Fax:   +254 20 322-6386
Contact the contributor: wspaf@worldbank.org

World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme, Africa Region

Other related links:
People not projects – the low-technology approach to improving rural water supply

Achieving sustainable water supply in rural Africa

Working together: a ‘best practice’ in rural water supply and sanitation in Africa