Abstract
It is recognized that international water sector development work has issues with a lack of sustained positive outcomes. A large driver of this outcome is how NGOs work with communities to implement and then manage water services. Many NGOs tend to focus their efforts on improving their reach and organisational growth by continually engaging in new projects. This behaviour is largely driven by short-term donor funding models that reward extended coverage, leaving little focus on sustained outcomes. Similarly, community-based management (CBM) schemes often impede sustained services as a result of the community’s limited capacity to operate and maintain the technology. To explore these complicated drivers on water service sustainability, we used causal loop diagramming to analyse the key aspect influencing the combined dynamics between NGOs, donors and CBM. We demonstrate this methodology through a study in Timor-Leste, where we gathered data necessary to develop and apply causal loop diagrams to analyse rural water supply program outcomes. The analysis of these diagrams allowed identification of leverage points used to suggest structural changes for sustained benefits of water services. These structural changes emphasize the importance of increased robustness and reliability of water technology and the associated impact this has on community satisfaction and, conjointly, on water service sustainability.
Highlights
Water supply interventions in developing nations have historically had issues with a lack of sustained and positive project outcomes [1,2,3,4,5,6]
In Timor-Leste, most small rural water systems are designed by local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or small business, ratified and funded by an international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) or government agency and, thereafter, maintained by the community through a GMF (Groupo Maneja Facilidade), which is a local community-based management (CBM) group
These GMFs are legislated under Decree Law No 4/2004, and their activities are further outlined in the Timor-Leste Rural Water Supply Guidelines [41]
Summary
Water supply interventions in developing nations have historically had issues with a lack of sustained and positive project outcomes [1,2,3,4,5,6]. This lack of long-term responsibility is a well-known and ongoing issue, which Easterly [12] found in his study of numerous World Bank projects This short-term thinking, in turn, motivates non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) to focus on building infrastructure in order to improve their reach and create organisational growth by using short-term funding models that reward high levels of implementation. These NGO-funder dynamics, propagated by the lack of incentive to focus on sustained project or program outcomes, impedes long-term thinking necessary to ensure proper operation and maintenance (O & M) systems are in place
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