Problems of Rural Water Supply and the Roles of Community Participation in Rural Water Supply Schemes Management: The Case of Lemo Woreda, Hadiya Zone, SNNPRS, Ethiopia.
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Date
2011-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
One of the major problems in the world today especially, in Africa is the scarcity of
water resources. Ethiopia is one of African countries that are endowed with relatively
abundant water resources, but access to safe drinking water supplies in rural Ethiopia
are among the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. The same is lacking in most of rural areas
of SNNPRS in general and Lemo woreda in particular. The general solution to water
demand problems had been more engineering oriented (supply oriented) where the idea
is always to increase supply by developing other source of water. The major objective of
this research is to see sustainability of rural water supply schemes, and the specific
objectives are to see major technical and financial factors that affect rural water supply
schemes sustainability and the governance which also contribute to sustainability of
rural water supply schemes. In order to obtain the required information that meets the
objectives of the study, I had selected 97 households' beneficiaries from five water
supply schemes and four kebeles of the woreda. Data obtained from household survey
were mainly analyzed quantitatively while data from FGD, KIf and physical observation
were analyzed qualitatively. The problems observed are: absence of local technicians
who are responsible for technical aspects of the schemes; absence of availability of
spare parts for community as well as allocated budget for it; the problem of technology
selection for rural water supply schemes development; lack of transparency on financial
management system; lack of ability and willingness to pay for the services in some of
the users beneficiaries; low capacity and skill for operation, maintenance, management
and governance of rural water supply by water committees and communities; lack of
community participation specifically, in the planning period absence of working
manuals, guidelines and lack of incentives for water committees, and lack of awareness
for sense of ownership, water management and governance at community level.
Therefore, the findings call for the need to give attention in sustaining of the existing
water supply schemes by getting the solutions and/ or by taking measures to the stated
and other related problems.
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Keywords
Rural Water Supply Schemes Management