Making your water supply work : operation and maintenance of small water supply systems

This document aims to provide project staff and sector professionals with the most recent information regarding trends and developments in operation and maintenance of water supply systems of small communities. It has been done through a review of available literature as well as through the comments formulated during the meetings of the Operation and Maintenance Working Group of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and using the practical field experience of the authors and the advice of IRC staff. The technologies described in this document include: the protected dug well, boreholes fitted with hand pumps, gravity piped distribution of a spring supply to standposts, rooftop harvesting of rainwater, and motorized pumps used at village level. The document is divided into four parts. The first part aims to clarify some of the basic concepts and highlights the major constraints and benefits of effective operation and maintenance. It also provides an overview of the trends which are affecting the sector and which have an impact on operation and maintenance. The second part discusses requirements for operation and maintenance in terms of people and organizations, technical requirements, spare parts provision, hygienic operation and use, environmental protection and funding. The third part discusses how communities themselves can be made responsible for the operation and maintenance of their own water systems in the context of projects, discussing issues such as community management, financial management, and monitoring and evaluation. The fourth part describes the institutional context for supporting operation and maintenance, and emphasises that it may well be that communities cannot be expected to take on the sole responsibility for the operation and maintenance of their water supply systems, and that the role and responsibilities of Government, External Support Agencies, NGOs and the Private Sector need to be properly defined.