Are there universally applicable operational models for delivering water and sanitation services in small towns? Is there a role for the private sector? How can public confidence in service providers be built and maintained? Do services need to be economically viable?

A study from Water and Environmental Health at London and Loughborough (WELL) warns against over-concentration on water supply services to the neglect of sanitation and health education. Globally-relevant recommendations emerge from a situation analysis of water supply and sanitation (including excreta disposal, solid waste management and storm drainage) in four small towns in Kerala State, India and Central and Eastern Uganda.

Kerala has developed a decentralised planning framework, the People's Planning Campaign. At all levels of government, staff and the public are aware of rules, roles and responsibilities. While operation and maintenance of water supplies remains the responsibility of the Kerala Water Authority, locals identify priorities and beneficiary committees oversee implementation.

Uganda's framework for management of small town water and sanitation is more confused. Despite recent moves towards decentralisation, central government continues with some capital investment in the sector. In one of the two towns surveyed, the failures of a complex multi-tiered management structure have resulted in widespread user dissatisfaction. The role of water user groups is unclear and interests of the majority of users are not sufficiently reflected. Provision of public toilets is inadequate. The other town with a more classical local government run system is well managed but the system itself suffers from poor initial design and construction.

Further findings include:

• In Kerala politicians are loath to tackle the perception that water should be free. Standpost users pay nothing and, despite almost universal household metering, only 40 percent of the amount due is collected. Operating costs are met from non-revenue sources.
• Sanitation is generally neglected. Officials talk of the need to improve sanitation but lack technical capacity and resources to do so.
• In one town studied in Kerala and one in Uganda, municipal officials deliver health and hygiene education. Despite this, more than 70 percent of beneficiaries do not wash hands after defecation.
• In one town studied in Uganda, one of the towns actively promoted the use and maintenance of domestic latrines.
• While there is private sector involvement in ancillary services (and private water vendors fill the gap when municipal supplies are insufficient), in neither Uganda nor Kerala is there any obvious need for a conventional private sector operator. Good management seems to be the key to successfully operated systems regardless of whether they are public, private or community operated.
• Kerala' s model of successful franchised operation of public latrines is replicable elsewhere.

The report does not endorse particular management models but urges clear and simple management structures committed to accountability and provider-user dialogue. Among other recommendations are:

• The importance of publicising the terms and conditions and accounts of any loan or grant-aided investment.
• The need for strategic planning, enabling service providers to plan for, and be able to fund, expansion as urban populations rise.
• If municipalities do not have their own secured sources of revenue they cannot provide effective water and sanitation services.
• Household willingness to pay has featured highly in recent thinking on water and sanitation. Equally important is institutional willingness to charge and to take action against defaulters.

Source(s):
'Provision of water and sanitation services to small towns’, WELL Task 323, by Jeremy Colin and Joy Morgan Full document.

Funded by: UK Department for International Development (IUDD under the WELL Planned Work Agreement)

id21 Research Highlight: 5 April 2002

Further Information:
Joy Morgan
Water, Engineering and Development Centre
Loughborough University
Leicestershire LE11 3TU
UK

Tel: 44 (0)1509 261888
Fax: 44 (0)1509 211079
Contact the contributor: morgan.assoc@zetnet.co.uk

Andy Cotton

Contact the contributor: a.p.cotton@lboro.ac.uk

Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC), University of Loughborough, UK

Other related links:
'Helping municipalities work with the private sector: a salutary experience from South Africa'

'Making water safer: cost-effective surveillance of urban water supplies in developing coutries'

WHO reports on Water and Sanitation

See also the International Water and Sanitation Centre

InterWater is the gateway to Water and Sanitation Information

WSP helps the poor gain sustained access to improved water supply and sanitation services