Malawi water developments: A systems approac

W.K. Kennedy (7218635)

English

Loughborough University Institutional Repository

G   WATER SUPPLY: KENNEDY28623rd WEDC Conference Durban, South Africa, 1997Malawi water developments: A systems approachW.K. Kennedy, UKWATER AND SANITATION FOR ALL: PARTNERSHIPS AND INNOVATIONSMALAWI IS WIDELY reported to have made significantprogress in the provision of safe water supplies, largely asa result of the successful programme of run-of-river ruralpiped-water schemes and the development of an integratedapproach to ground-water development using a villagelevel operation and maintenance (VLOM) approach. Theintroduction of an integrated rural ground-water supplyprogramme in Malawi was the major thrust of develop-ments during the International Drinking Water Supply andSanitation Decade (1981 - 1991). The ’integrated‘ aspectof this programme brought together the borehole and thedug-wells programmes which had originally been separateprogrammes administered by different Government min-istries.Another aspect of ‘integration’ was to attempt a moresystems approach to projects with socio-economic andtechnical aspects considered equally and where commu-nity participation strategies could be harnessed (as theywere in the piped-water and dug-well programmes). Theintegrated approach would also incorporate sanitationand health education components.It is instructive to note the historical development ofrural water supplies in Malawi as it aptly illustrates thelack of a coherent and integrated systems approach. Theresponsibility for borehole construction lay with the De-partment of Geological Survey within the Ministry ofAgriculture and Natural Resources. The rural piped-waterand the shallow well programmes were implemented bythe Ministry of Community Development and Social Wel-fare.In order to bring all the agencies responsible for waterdevelopments into one organisation the Department ofLands, Valuation and Water (DLVW) was formed in 1980.However, there was still very little opportunity to carry outa detailed hydro-geological investigation. The evaluationof groundwater had traditionally been carried out bygeologists rather than hydo-geologists and was basedalmost entirely on the routine use of geophysics in a verystandardised way.With the borehole programme siting of boreholes hadtraditionally been carried out with little appreciation of thegeneral occurrence of groundwater and with hardly anyreference made to existing geophysical or constructiondata.Thus the borehole and dug-well programmes had grownup independently, without coordination and without dueconsideration for the most appropriate abstraction methodfor local conditions. Boreholes were sometimes drilledwhere water levels were within 2 to 3m of the ground anddug wells were sited where water levels were deep. Fur-thermore, the construction and maintenance costs hadrisen and the widely dispersed activities of both pro-grammes were difficult to manage and supervise. Theoverall result was one of high cost and low technicalstandards.The concept of a ’low cost borehole‘ originated early in1980, with the objective being to design boreholes which:• can be rapidly and easily constructed at low cost;• utilise low-cost casing and screen which is chemicallyand bacteriologically inert;• have a relatively high hydraulic efficiency;• have reduced and simplified maintenance requirements.Two major and interdependent elements were:• the design and construction of a handpump that couldbe manufactured locally and would permit a majorcontribution to maintenance to be made by the usercommunity;• the establishment of a largely community-based main-tenance organisation for all water points to replace theinefficient and costly system operating in the past.An important aspect of the integrated programme wasthe introduction of a village level operation and mainte-nance (VLOM) system which had both technical andsocio-economic aspects. However, VLOM was a conceptwhich seemed to mean different things to different people.(Hyde and Jespersen, 1994) noted:‘The handpump producer utilise the acronym as anaddition to their trade mark to indicate that their productis fit for the most remote communities —. Planners seeVLOM as a way to privatisation, thereby reducing theburden on government expenditures. Government institu-tions directly responsible for rural water supply regardVLOM as a means of reducing pressure on already over-burdened public maintenance teams.’In too many cases the VLOM strategy has been consid-ered to be a panacea with too little attention paid to the wayit should be implemented to ensure sustainability. There isa need to have a more systemic approach with socio-economic aspects featuring just as prominently as techni-cal ones.The issue of meaningful community participation at alllevels of the integrated water projects in Malawi was notas effective as was hoped. The concept of communityG   WATER SUPPLY: KENNEDY287participation focused on VLOM as a dynamic process,needing careful conception, constant monitoring, develop-ment and refining was not taken up.  Malawi had long recognised the difficulties of ensuringthat maintenance strategies were sustainable. From thestart of the integrated projects it was envisaged that thecommunities involved would be responsible for the opera-tion and maintenance of the water points. However,although this message was communicated at all meetingsheld in connection with the choice of the water point siteand self-help activities related to construction, the messageregarding responsibilities for future operation and mainte-nance was not made concrete. In reality the VLOM systemas such was not developed until the end of the executionphase of the project, i.e. at the handover of the water pointto the community.Sustainability of VLOMSustainability is dependent on a number of factors: thecommunity’s commitment to the project, affordability tothe users; viable community institutions, the developmentof skills, the supply of spare parts, etc. The question ofmeans needs to be addressed, i.e. has the community theresources/ finance to take on the long-term operation andmaintenance of the project? In Malawi, the biggest prob-lem regarding the community’s continued support wasrelated to financial uncertainty due to the floating of thecountry’s currency and rampant inflation.A basic requirement for the function of the system is userconfidence in their own abilities to manage VLOM withrespect to organisation, finance and technical aspects. Thisconfidence can only be built up gradually, with the com-munity institutions developed early - if possible evenbefore sites for the water points are identified and drilled.In this way the institutions can be incorporated into theplanning process from the very beginning and resistancetowards full community responsibility avoided. Thereneeds to be adequate training and sensitive support inplace. The appropriate level of support is best introducedthrough careful monitoring taking into account social andtechnical factors. This needs attention to process with theuser’s demand of, and reaction to, the structures andfunction of the VLOM system taken fully into account.A further reflection on the concept of sustainabilityneeds to be stressed. It should not be interpreted as somesearch for the perfect equilibrium situation. Change isinevitable and unforeseen circumstances are bound toarise. So what sustainability is really about is the capacityto respond, to adapt and, if necessary, to invent newsolutions. The challenge here is to absorb this outlook intoa VLOM approach with a real community developmentfocus being an essential objective of any project. VLOMneeds to be seen to be a dynamic process, calling forconstant development and refinement to cater for theincreased skills obtained by the communities. This in-creases the possibility of having the users take furtherresponsibilities within the system and, ideally, takingultimate charge of it all, possibly through private businessstructures.The possibility of establishing genuine consumer co-operatives to cater for projects should be investigated. Thiswould enhance community participation in all aspects ofoperation and maintenance including spare parts andcontinued training. A co-operative based project in whichorganisation and resources/ finance were worked out bythe community at the start of the project would probablyfurther the VLOM and sustainability objectives.In a specific project in Malawi  serving an area with apopulation of about 60,000 the introduction of a mainte-nance system for a new technology was a demanding taskwhich could not be rushed. Besides training, support is anessential part of the maintenance phase. This is needed toensure that when problems arise they are immediatelydiscovered, explained, discussed and appropriate actiontaken. In this way the community not only builds upconfidence in its own ability to cater for the technologyintroduced, but also, and perhaps more importantly, de-velops an awareness of its ability to become more self-reliant. This is a fundamental requirement in taking seri-ously the challenge of the concept of ’sustainability as adynamic process‘.Outcome of a typical project in MalawiThe Karonga Lakeshore Integrated Rural GroundwaterSupply Project in the Northern Region of Malawi com-pleted its execution phase in March 1991, with the instal-lation of 300 water points, 295 of which were fitted withAfridev deep well hand-pumps. This marked the actualcommencement of the operation and maintenance phase,of which the first four years were to be financed byDANIDA on a declining scale.Organisational structureThe Karonga VLOM structure is based on existing struc-tures within the district. Ultimate responsibility lies withthe District Development Committee, the coordinatingbody of all development activities in the district. Its mem-bership consisted of the District Commissioner (chair-man), district party chairpersons of all political parties,chiefs, heads of government departments, religious leadersand representatives of the business communities.Since the Karonga project area covers two TraditionalAuthorities, each has an Area Action Committee. Each ofthe villages covered by the project was expected to have aVillage Water Health Committee (VWHC) consisting often members, of which half should be women. For eachwater point there is an elected Pump Committee (PC)consisting of ten members, with the stipulation that at least50 per cent should be women. The Pump Committee isresponsible for the election of two pump attendants (PAs)for the repair and maintenance of its water points. It wasrecommended that at least one should be a women.G   WATER SUPPLY: KENNEDY288Support for the functioning of the VWHCs, PCs and PAsis given by the extension workers of the four ministries co-operating in the field, i.e. the Ministry of Women andChildren Affairs and Community Service, Ministry ofHealth, Ministry of Local Government, and the WaterDepartment of the Ministry of Works.Project review findingsA sociological and technical review of the KarongaLakeshore Integrated Rural Groundwater Supply Projectwas carried out. (Hyde and Jesperson, 1994) Among itsfindings were:• Urgent action should be taken to educate the commit-tees and the communities about the need to prepare forand meet future increased maintenance costs. Unfortu-nately, the use of water point maintenance funds nolonger appears to be the answer to this problem be-cause of the changed economic environment.’ (Thelatter point referring to the floating of Malawi’s cur-rency and the resulting sharp increase in inflation.)• An emphasis on reactivating district institutions andmaintaining links with the Area Action Committeesand the District Development Committees to ensurethat a wider forum remains open to the communitiesfor the discussion of major problems that may arise.• A systematic health education system still needs to beestablished in the area. What little development mate-rialised in this area was largely due to the project’straining of the committees and a drama experiment puton by students. This was clearly not sustainable andonce again showed how the ’integrated project‘ did notencompass a systemic approach.• One of the major failings of the project was the timingof the VLOM phase of the project.The concept of VLOM had been communicated to thecommunities during the execution phase of the project.However, a comprehensive VLOM framework was notpresented to the communities before the actual handover.This was a major oversight and clearly showed that aproject which had as its emphasis the development of acommunity-based sustainable system was confounded bythe lack of the necessary community awareness/ involve-ment throughout the early stages of the project. It wasironic that the emphasis with the VLOM approach was ontechnical aspects to the detriment of the community par-ticipation strategies so vital to the overall goal.The implementation model that had been adopted fol-lowed the sequence:Project Preparation - mobilisation - construction -handover to users - operation and maintenance (VLOM).With this model users were not involved in the construc-tion of the water points, but were simply taught how tomaintain them after they had been constructed. The vitalelement of ownership of the water points was not properlyaddressed. The review already mentioned recommended adifferent strategy:Preparation - technical and social mobilisation - estab-lishment of operation and maintenance (VLOM) system -construction and simultaneous handover to users.In other words, a great deal of effort should be put in atthe start of the project to mobilise communities to prepareand train them for their role in VLOM. Before the waterpoints exist it should be clear to the communities thatownership and responsibility for the water points restswith them. Although this will slow down constructionactivities it will ensure community participation through-out and help to develop sustainability.What is needed in the area of VLOM is to appreciateadvances in the new ways of thinking about system. Systemevolution includes a participative learning process whichpartly shapes the dynamics of social system development.It is crucial for policymakers to accept that policy forma-tion is a dynamic process with the necessity to adapt tochanging circumstances at the policy implementation stage.This crucial aspect of development is still ignored bypolicymakers to the detriment of any real advance incommunity participation.ReferencesHYDE, K.A.L., JESPERSEN, C.B., 1994,’KarongaLakeshore Integrated Rural Groundwater Supply Project:Village Level Operation and Maintenance: Third Socio-logical and Technical Monitoring Report’, University ofMalawi, Centre for Social Research.W.K. KENNEDY, The Open University, UK.

Malawi water developments: A systems approach

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Malawi water developments: A systems approach

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