Performance evaluation of a community managed water supply system (case study“Aboransa System”)

The access to safe drinking Water and adequate sanitation is fundamental to development Formerly the provision of potable water supply to the rural communities in Ghana has been the full responsibility of the Ghana Water & Sewerage Corporation. The beneficiary communities were only to pay for user fees, whilst funds from the central government and Donor agencies were used to develop and maintain the systems. The communities see the provision of water supply as the sole responsibility of government, and as such do not see the need to pay for user fees. There are also poor maintenance and management practices at the community level. This has led to the breakdown of more than 50% of about 10,000 drilled boreholes fitted with hand pumps, and about 8,000 hand-dug-wells in the rural communities as at 1992. Many researchers have also come out with additional reasons for this breakdown. Prominent among the reasons are: Little or no involvement of beneficiary communities in the planning and implementation of the systems, and the lack of community based management structures for the operation and maintenance of the systems, and inadequate funding for maintenance One of the recurring issues in rural/community water supply m Ghana is how to ensure good performance and sustainability In 1994, Community Water & Sanitation Division of GWSC was tasked by the government to manage the process of converting all rural pipe-borne and borehole systems to community management This means that members of the beneficiary communities are to actually own, operate and maintain the water supply and sanitation facilities given them. A National Community Water & Sanitation Programme (NCWSP) and strategy was then implemented. The ultimate goal of the strategy is to ensure sustainable delivery of potable water and sanitation facilities to beneficiary communities. With the above goal of the strategy in mind, there is the need for further work be done on the factors that will ensure the effective sustainability of community managed water supply and sanitation facilities. This particular research activity involved the performance evaluation of a community managed water supply system, using the “Aboransa System” as a case study. The ultimate objectives of the research are to evaluate the performance of system in the following areas: Institutional and organisational arrangements at the local level, financial arrangements and Technical issues. The research is to also assess how the performance in the above mentioned areas can contribute or lead to the long term sustainability or otherwise of the system. Based on the literature review and the analysis data collected, the conclusion drawn is that the system has performed well and its long term sustainability is feasible. There is however the need for some issue to be tackled by the CWSA and the District Assemblies. The critical issues are the occasional refresher training for the management and operating staff at the local level and the periodic auditing of the accounts of the Water & Sanitation Development Board (WSDB) Recommendations have been made for the effective sustainability of a system of such kind in this research.

Source: KNUST