Direct support for

rural water service

delivery

London 31st December 2011

Support for service delivery is often the most neglected area of cost and effort

Why support rural water services?

• Most rural communities cannot manage all of the tasks all of the time

• Shift from ‘volunteerism’ towards more professionalised service provision

• Increasing requirement for oversight and monitoring

• New mandates for local government as ‘service authority’

3

What do we mean by institutional support?

Direct support to communities

‘Post-construction support’

• Data collection

• Monitoring and oversight

• Technical advice

• Administrative and organisational support

• Conflict resolution – the neutral voice

• (re-) training

• Information and links to resources

Indirect support to service authorities (local government)

• Data collation

• Monitoring and oversight

• Specialist technical advice and equipment

• Capacity building and training

• Quality control, norms and standards

• Planning and resource allocation

4

Indirect capacity support to local government

5

• Most commonly central ministry or national agency via deconcentrated offices:

• Uganda - Technical Support Units

• South Africa - Dept. Water Affairs

• Ghana - CWSA regional offices

• Associations of local government – Latin America ‘mancomunidades’

Arrangements for providing direct support

Arrangement for support

agent

Examples

Direct support by local govt.

Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda

Central govt. or parastatal

• Honduras - national utility SANAA circuit rider programme • Colombia – unit within national ministry

Associations of community providers

• Honduras – AHJASA; Colombia - AQUACOL • Brazil - Sistema Integrado de Saneamento Rural (SISAR) • USA – RCAP and NRWA; membership organisations

Sub-contracted companies or individuals

• South Africa - Support Services Agency (SSA), which can be a private company or NGO . • Uganda, Malawi - pump mechanics or area-based mechanics • Chile - regional private utilities contracted by Ministry

NGOs • Many on-going implementation programmes – ad hoc basis • El Salvador - Asociación Salvadoreña de Servicios de Agua

Técnico en OyM (TOM) model from Honduras

7

Technical Division Manager

Manager/coordinator Rural Water systems

Senior accountant

North 1 engineer

South 1 engineer

West 1 engineer

Central West

1 engineer

Central East

1 engineer

Atlantic 1 engineer

North 14 TOMS

South 7 TOMS

West 18 TOMS

C. West 18 TOMS

E. West 18 TOMS

Atlantic 6 TOMS

Regular support and back-up to: • Village committees Water boards • Water system operators Municipalities

CENTRAL

LEVEL

REGIONAL

LEVEL

LOCAL

LEVEL

Scope of TOM model from Honduras

• Support to over 4,000 rural communities = 2 m of 3.2 m rural pop.

• Each técnico has ~50 communities with average of 2 visits per year

• Data collection for SIAR – Rural Water Information System

• Established in 1995 by SANAA with financing support from USAID - sustainability?

8

What does direct support cost?

Source: A. Meleg (2011)

Costs of BBA SISAR based in Quixada, Ceará, Brazil

Integrated System for Rural Sanitation 12 staff members: •3 technical staff, • 7 administrative/ commercial •1 social science background •1 responsible for general services

Financing: User tariff, based on metered connections and collection of bills

Coverage: 25 and 112 systems each, representing between 15,000 and 72,000 users.

Direct Support ~ US$3.60 per person per year

Emerging lessons on cost of direct support

• Costs of direct support are significant – accounting for ~ 20 - 25% of all long-term expenditure

• In (lower) middle income countries ~ US$2 – 3 person/year appears to be sufficient order of magnitude

• < US$1 person/year appears too low to be effective

11

Planning for direct support in programming

• Who coordinates and provides long-term support to WASH service delivery?

• How is this currently financed and what are the gaps?

• Is it possible for us to contribute to such support structures?

• Can we make linkages with (local) authorities so that the projects we deliver are supported?

12

Further information

13

‘Arrangements and cost of providing support to rural water service providers’; IRC, 2011

www.waterservicesthatlast.org