Factors influencing sustainability of communally-managed waterfacilities in rural areas of Zimbabwe

Sustainability of point water facilities is a major development challenge in many rural settings ofdeveloping countries not sparing those in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. This study was done inZimbabwe to investigate the factors influencing sustainability of rural water supply systems. A total of399 water points were studied in Nyanga, Chivi and Gwanda districts. Data was collected using aquestionnaire, observation checklist and key informant interview guide. Multi-Criteria analysis was usedto assess the sustainability of water points and inferential statistical analysis such as Chi square tests andAnalysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to determine if there were significant differences on selectedvariables across districts and types of lifting devices used in the study area. The thematic approach wasused to analyze qualitative data. Results show that most water points were not functional and only 17%across the districts were found to be sustainable. A fusion of social, technical,financial, environmentaland institutional factors was found to be influencing sustainability. On technical factors the ANOVAresults show that the type of lifting devicefitted at a water point significantly influences sustainability(F¼37.4, p<0.01). Availability of spare parts at community level was found to be determining thedowntime period of different lifting devices in the studied wards. Absence of user committees was foundto be central in influencing sustainability as water points that did not have user committees were notsustainable and most of them were not functional during the time of the survey

Amplifying local voices to reduce failure in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector

This is a poster briefWASH endeavours regularly fail. Sometimes this means that entire programmes do not achieve their stated aims, sometimes these failures are setbacks which can be rectified with sufficient reflection and action. This research aimed to develop an evidence base of how and why field-based WASH professionals in four sub-Saharan African countries believe failures occur, their experiences when sharing and discussing them within their organisations, and how they believe a culture conducive to publicly sharing and learning from failures could be nurtured