Abstract
This paper addresses the question of whether community management in water service delivery affects the sustainability of rural water facilities (RWFs) at village level, in terms of their technical and managerial aspects, and what role capacity building of users and providers plays in this process. Empirical research was conducted in nine villages in the districts of Kondoa and Mpwapwa, in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. The results reveal that sustainability of RWFs is in jeopardy and that villages far from the District Council headquarters experience numerous technical and management problems. The national water framework does not clearly define the roles of the key actors at the district, village and household levels. District Water Departments do not have enough resources to render the services needed adequately and in a timely manner. In all the villages studied there were no local technicians trained for basic operation and maintenance. This implies that the concept of community management cannot be taken at face value; its actual meaning needs to be specified in order to offer a realistic and feasible option in the decentralization of rural water provision. With regard to capacity development, we recommend establishing workshops for clusters of villages to repair breakdowns and coordinate spare parts.
Highlights
‘Water provision is indisputably the most politicized public service, and developing countries have been greatly affected by the consequences of the ideological and political tendencies surrounding it’ ( Jiménez & Pérez-Foguet, 2010a: 1)
One aspect of decentralization is that rural water services have entailed a shift from water being a social good to becoming an economic good, and water users being made responsible to pay for the full cost of operation and maintenance (O&M) through user fees (Maganga et al, 2002; Cleaver & Toner, 2006; Jiménez & Pérez-Foguet, 2010a, b)
Drawing on existing debates about the sustainability of rural water supply and decentralization, this paper addresses the following questions: (1) how do the current community management arrangements at the district and village levels work, and how do they affect the sustainability of rural water facilities (RWFs) at the village level in terms of technical and managerial aspects? and (2) how can capacity building of providers and users be integrated into current community management arrangements and contribute to the sustainability of RWFs?
Summary
‘Water provision is indisputably the most politicized public service, and developing countries have been greatly affected by the consequences of the ideological and political tendencies surrounding it’ ( Jiménez & Pérez-Foguet, 2010a: 1). The 2002 NAWAPO and 2008 National Water Sector Development Strategy (NWSDS) do not explicitly describe the roles and responsibilities of the actors at the lowest levels and do not clearly indicate who will train the communities (URT, 2002, 2008) Failure to address these critical issues debilitates the efforts invested in the sector (Harvey & Reed, 2004; de Palencia & Pérez-Foguet, 2011). These changes form a nexus between community management, sustainability and transfer of decision-making, management authority and payment responsibility to the communities at the village level and service users at the household level This nexus underlies our theoretical framework that links community management and the sustainability of rural water schemes (Rondinelli, 1991; Harvey & Reed, 2004, 2007), and highlights capacity constraints as one of the neglected challenges in implementing decentralization (Smoke, 2003, 2010).
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