Community Participation

Community Participation

10. Taking care of thousands of village water supply systems requires a large organization and a large financial imput which cannot be easily afforded by public administrations. Beneficiaries should be involved in decision making during the planning stage, participate during the construction phase and contribute in a sustainable way to the operation and maintenance activities of the water works constructed for them.

11. The new government strategy should include the request for people's contribution in terms of local material and labour, and a financial contribution for maintenance costs. To this effect, village water committees should be organized and a selected person(s) should be trained in the installation, operation and maintenance of water supply systems and hand-pumps; he should receive a small salary payed by the beneficiaries, if possible. Only in this way people will feel responsible for the maintenance of water works and take care of their pumps and wells. At this point it is important to mention that we are talking of small communities with less than 100 to 1000 people. It is within this
range that the direct participation of the villagers seems appropriate.

12. If villagers do not agree or are not informed on the proposed scheme and their contribution is not requested, they may consider that the new water source does not belong to them and therefore operation and maintenance is considered to be the responsibility of the government.

13. To obtain the peoples participation, however, is not an easy ask for the government unless a qualified NGO is involved. Training should be the government's responsibility. Periodic training courses for hand-pump and power-pump repair should be organized at regular intervals by qualified government agencies and by contractors.