Assessment of Problems to Sustainability of Rural Water Supply Schemes with Particular Attention to Handpumps: The Case of Aleta Wondo Woreda, Sidama Zone, SNNPR.
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Date
2009-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Safe, adequate and sustainable supply of water is basic needs, and essential components
of socioeconomic development of a given society. However, a great section of society still
remained without access to safe, adequate and sustainable supplies of water. The
problem is severe within rural communities than urban. Some of the major causes of the
problem are; limitations in development of new water supply schemes and non
sustainability of already developed water schemes are major ones. To tackle the problem
of sustainability, development agents are using village level operated and maintained
technologies such as hand pumps. However, empirical evidence shows that huge numbers
of community managed water supply hand pumps are not operational. As result, numbers
of people with safe water supply are decreasing and wasted investment capital is
increasing. Having these issues in mind, the researcher assessed factors affecting
sustainability of rural water supply hand pumps, in Aleta Wendo Wereda.
The research was initiated by conducting scheme inventory to know current status of
hand pumps. Then after, probability and non probability sampling techniques were
employed to select sample handpumps, respondents for households survey, focus group
discussion participants and key interview informants. Specifically, 7 handpumps (5
functional & 2 nonfunctional) were selected by applying proportionate stratified random
sampling; 128 households were selected through simple random sampling for households
survey; 5 focus group discussions were held with selected water committees, women
groups and wereda water office staff members; Key informant il1lerviews were conducted
with 9 individuals selectedfrom community, government offices and NGOs. Furlhermore,
quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statislics, frequency (Qble& cross
tabulation using SPPS version 15 sofnvare. Also, hand pumps inventory data were
mapped by using Arc View 3.2a sofnvare and qualitative data were analyzed through
narration.
The study has revealed that 47.5% of handpumps are not operational during scheme
inventory exercise. Furthermore, performance of water commillee were found to be weak
since scheme management training were not provided in most cases,. lacks working
manuals& by-laws ,and legal recognition as well. Women do not made real participation
during hand pumps development; also, number of women in water committees varies
benveen 20-40% and their responsibility limited to mere membership of the commillee in
most cases; community technicians, toolkits and spare parts supply chain were almost
non existent in the study area. Majority of users do nol contribute for O&M regularly;
some hand pumps are abandoned because of waleI' quality problem and low yield as
result of inappropriate site selection and lack of conslruction supervision; instilutional
capacity problems of wereda water office in terms of human, material and jinancial
resources were also identified.
Hence the study calls for: adequate scheme management trainings along with necessalY
working manuals and directives to be provided for WCs; legal status of WCs should be
ensured; women's decision making roles should be strengthened; local community
technicians should be trained and necessary toolkits to be provided before scheme hand
over to community. Simultaneously, to address problem of spare parts, RSP F should be
established in wereda cenler; inlegrated feasibility study and construction/drilling
supervision should be conducted by appropriate professionals; instilutional capacity of
WWRDO should be strengthened in terms of human, material andjinancial resources.
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Keywords
Sustain ability of Rural Water