Community management of small urban water supplies in Sudan and Ghana

This paper compares two projects, based in Sudan and Ghana, which take a community management approach to small urban water supplies. Under this approach, representative community organisations have the legal right to own and control their water supply. Accordingly, both projects began by identifying and assessing existing community organisations, with a view to setting up wateryard committees, with an average of 8 members. Given the Islamic beliefs in the towns, men and women were organised into separate sub-committees, and addressed different issues. Men focused on technical and financial aspects, women concentrated on hygiene, sanitation and water utilisation but they also played a major role in financial management. Both projects aimed to enhance the sustainability of water supplies but the emphasis on community participation differed. In Sudan, communities had little say about the technology employed. In Ghana communities played a much larger role in evaluating a range of water supply options. The Sudanese project had substantial budgets for hygiene education and sanitation promotion (and women played a particularly active role here) while in Ghana community efforts in these areas were hampered by lack of funds. In both projects communities made minor contributions towards capital costs and both supplied community labour. However, both communities were responsible for paying full operating and maintenance costs. In Sudan, training to strengthen community management was provided by project staff. Women members were trained in public education techniques relating to hygiene and sanitation. In Ghana, communities also received training in management and operating techniques, with the long term aim of handing over full management and operating responsibility for the water supply to the community. Institutionalising a community management approach involves developing human resources within the government as well as creating an enabling environment. The degree of government commitment to community management was a major difference between the two projects. In Sudan, government commitment was lacking and on completion of the project in 1990, the management of water supplies reverted to centralised control. In Ghana, national sector policy supported the principle of community management of water supply and appropriate legislative, administrative and financial arrangements are being developed at national level. As the project runs until 1997, however, final evaluation remains premature. The paper concludes with a number of recommendations for enhancing the success of community management of small urban water supplies (1) the need for an effective community organisation, which represents economic, political and ethnic groups and men and women. (2) the importance of community participation in the planning and design stages of water supplies (3) the need for clearly defined levels of external and government financial support for capital costs (4) the need for a broad-based, multi-disciplinary training programme at community, government agency and sectorial levels (5) the need for a clear long-term commitment to community management on the part of government and external support agencies.