O&M audit, a practical tool for sustainabilit

Foster K. Soley (7221311)

Jens Thogersen (7221281)

English

Loughborough University Institutional Repository

SOLEY and THOGERSEN26328th WEDC Conference Kolkata (Calcutta), India, 2002O&M audit, a practical tool for sustainabilityF. Soley and J. Thogersen, GhanaSUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION AND WATER SERVICESTHE DANIDA SPONSORED Volta Region Community Waterand Sanitation Programme in Ghana has been under imple-mentation since 1993. Community Water and SanitationAgency is the statutory authority responsible for its imple-mentation.The prime objective of the Programme has been theprovision of reliable and easily accessible potable drinkingwater, which is managed and sustained by the beneficiarycommunities. To date, a total of 88 pipe schemes and over1,200 boreholes fitted with handpumps have been con-structed and these are serving an estimated population of400,000.In trying to ensure that the beneficiary communitiessustain these water facilities, various strategies were adopted.The first was to induce and strengthen the concept ofCommunity Ownership and Management. This was donethrough a combination of re-orientation of the entirepopulation on the need to change their perceptions aboutwater and technical/institutional capacity building at thecommunity level. The 5% community contribution as acommitment fee during the mobilization and animationstage, the constitution of a management body popularlycalled Water and Sanitation Committee or Board, thetraining of these committees/boards, selection and trainingof operators, caretakers and Area Mechanics and theprovision of working tools are concrete manifestation ofefforts aimed at facility sustainability. The development ofthe private sector is also a key strategy under the Pro-gramme. This is intended to make basic O&M servicesreadily available to communities as and when needed solong as they have money to pay for it.Operation and Maintenance (O&M) considerations have,however, received varying levels of attention during thedifferent project phases. Communities are often very anx-ious to benefit from new physical projects/facilities. Theenthusiasm at this stage is normally so overwhelming thatno impediment is tolerated. They normally manage to meetall requirements of the Programme. With the completion ofthe facility the interest wanes significantly and it becomesvery difficult to institute effective and efficient O&Mmechanisms for sustainability. At this point, they must beconvinced through other means to readily adopt bestmanagement practices. Simply telling them what they aresupposed to do at this stage has proven ineffective. Thisimplies that the Programme ought to go a step further todrive home its O&M messages. The generally poor main-tenance culture arising from utter indifference to publicgoods by Ghanaians compounds the O&M challenge.The Monitoring, Operation and Maintenance (MOM)Unit of the Programme has come to realise beyond alldoubts that the communities cannot be solely blamed fornot doing what they have been told to do several times overthe years. Rather, the entire system has to be re-assessed toclearly establish the missing links in order to make head-way.This understanding propelled the Unit, which comprisestwo Engineers and a Socio-economist to embark on acampaign named O&M Audit. The main rationale behindthe Audit are to: assist communities in identifying problemsand taking proactive measures to rectify them; build thecapacity of WATSAN Committees/Boards in overcomingidentified problem areas for a more sustainable O&M oftheir facilities; enhance the awareness of communities inO&M especially regarding their roles and responsibilities;and educate/inform communities about routine mainte-nance requirements (specifics) of their facilities. Certainmaintenance functions are not performed by the Caretak-ers/Operators not because they are irresponsible or non-committed but simply because they are not aware they haveto be doing them. The Audit helps the district and pro-gramme staff to recognise critical monitoring issues so theycan be more focussed in their work. The O&M Audit hasactually turned out to be very potent in promoting positivechanges in the management of the water facilities.The audit methodologyThe O&M Audit is a systematic community-based activity,which uses participatory methodologies like InteractiveDiscussions, Interviews, and Guided Walk along all struc-tures of the facility. A critical review/analyses of all recordshelps the Audit Team to ask very searching questions,which make it almost impossible for the management bodyto misrepresent facts or provide incorrect answers to im-press the team. An effort is usually made by the Audit teamto reach out to stakeholders who were not present at themeeting for their opinions on any issue at stake.Planning and preparationThis first phase of the O&M Audit basically involves thereview of all available literature on the community e.g.feasibility study reports and design documents. These arestudied to give the Team a good foreknowledge about thewater system before the actual Audit visit. Advance com-munications with the Programme’s District Office to ar-range a date for the Audit visit with the community is alsodone at this stage.SOLEY and THOGERSEN264Audit visitThe second phase is the Audit visit. The outline of the visitincludes a meeting with the Chiefs, Opinion Leaders, andthe WATSAN Committee/Board and other interest/pres-sure groups in the community. There is also a joint techni-cal inspection by the participants in the Audit namely thevisiting Team, the Caretakers, WATSAN Committee orBoard members and any other interested participants.  [Themeeting, which is highly interactive, is moderated by theaudit team who ethically desists from too much lecturing,but rather listens more to gather as much information aspossible normally takes 4 hours.] Here, the rationale of theexercise is thoroughly explained to the participants so as toovercome their anxiety and create a congenial atmospherefor frank exchanges of ideas without any intimidation. Nocontribution or question is ‘stupid’. Additionally, the mod-erators should ably control tempers so as to prevent anyclashes between factions.The beauty of this meeting is the way it provides acommon platform for all the stakeholders and relatedinterest groups to freely air their concerns about the man-agement of the scheme. This discussion is significant inexplaining objectively the situations, both managerial andconflict, as they come up. This forum is also used to lobbythe community’s support for the WATSAN Committee/Board since the community itself has some crucial O&Mroles and responsibilities. After this meeting, the commu-nity is asked to fix a convenient date for the presentation ofthe Audit report where the whole/majority of the peoplewould be available and where every issue will be clearlyexplained to the understanding of all. Some individualswho, out of conflicts, refuse/fail to participate in themeeting for some reasons, are approached in their homesby the Audit Team for a one-on-one session. After thismeeting, there is a joint technical inspection of the entirewater scheme by the participants especially the Caretakers,WATSAN Committee/Board members and any other inter-ested participant.There is hands on coaching for the care-taker on operation and maintenance of treatment plants,valves and valve chambers. The WATSAN committee onthe other hand receive coaching on sound managerial andfinancial procedures. Eg simple financial accounting andcalculation of tariff collection efficiency. This is becausethe Audit team is more keen on getting problems under-stood and solved than documenting them.Report preparationAudit report preparation is next after the Audit team visit.It is a detailed and comprehensive account of the O&Mstatus quo, outlining specific recommendations for im-provement. [On  average, between 15 and 25 recommenda-tions are contained in the report to be implemented by theWATSAN Committee/Board, the community or by theProgramme’s District Office and are clearly specified. ]Community debriefingThe next stage is the Report Presentation at a communitymeeting. This is the most interesting milestone in the AuditProcess. The extent of ignorance of the community in termsof O&M becomes very evident here. Their anxiety tounderstand the system and acquire tools they can use tocheck the WATSAN Committee/Board especially in themanagement of their finances is aggressively brought to thefore. The Team patiently provides answers to all theircuriosity while at the same time stresses the need for thecommunity’s maximum cooperation with the WATSANCommittee/Board in the management of the scheme.Follow-upThe final stage in the process is the filling-in of a simplefollow up form by the Field Extension Staff, who in our caseis the Environmental Health Assistant. The Form containsa summary of all the recommendations given by the AuditTeam. This is taken to the community every two monthsand filled with Yes or No answers as to whether Action hasbeen taken or not. There is a small column for remark oneach recommendation describing incomplete attempts madeso far or reasons for inactions. This form is then sent to theAudit Team for analysis aimed at establishing the extent ofresponsiveness to the implementation of the recommenda-tions by the relevant stakeholders namely, the operators/caretakers, WATSAN Committee/Board and the Pro-gramme’s District Staff.Resources required for the auditTwo man-days are normally used by each of the Teammembers (comprising both engineering and socio-econo-mist professionals) i.e. one day for the actual Audit, halfday for the Audit report preparation and another half dayfor a debriefing of the whole community (report presenta-tion).Another important but implicit resource requirement isthe acknowledgement of the importance of this O&Mintervention by all Programme Staff. This way, they will bemore willing to lend the necessary support to the processand accept in good faith problems that might be exposed bythe Audit. It is important that Programme staff do notmisconstrue this activity as a fault-finding one but shouldrather understand it as an opportunity to solve identifiedproblems whilst learning lessons for future improvement.It must be a genuine acknowledgement of their own short-comings. This fear in fact exists and should be managedthrough diplomacy and continuous education of the differ-ent stakeholders of the Programme.SOLEY and THOGERSEN265The O&M Audit intervention has so far covered 30communities benefiting from either pipe schemes (25) orboreholes fitted with handpumps (5).DiscussionApproach to extension support for communitiesThe original approach to extension work in the communi-ties had been the persistent preaching of O&M messages onwhat ought to be done by the communities. This approachwas based on the assumption that communities will dowhatever they are told to do. Such messages like the needto: set a water tariff; prepare a budget; keep proper financialand other records; render accounts to the community etc,were not uncommon. The O&M Audits have demon-strated, however, that dissemination of textbook O&Minformation is rarely sufficient for sustainability of thefacilities, the content of the information and the implica-tions of not taking certain actions are seldom understood.The general O&M knowledge must be accompanied with“tailor made” problem oriented knowledge disseminatedusing the approach of actually assisting them to changeprocedures.Communities were told as part of the animation processthat they are solely responsible for O&M. In other words,the partnership between the community and the Pro-gramme/Community Water and Sanitation Agency endswith the completion and handing over of the facility.However the expectation that the communities are capableof taking full responsibility for O&M of their facilities soonafter completion is, in most cases unrealistic, O&M mustbe considered as a collective responsibility involving thecommunity the Programme/CWSA, and Private Sectorservice providers, over a prolonged period after comple-tion.The caretakers/operators are local artisans/mechanicsidentified from within the community and given sometraining. Similarly, the WATSAN Committees/Boards areconstituted by the local community people who generallydo not have enough experience in management of a publicutility like water. What is required is an approach by whichthe WATSAN Committee or caretaker is assisted to under-stand and do what is right many times until they getconversant to become more independent-minded in theperformance of their duties. This implies that all ExtensionAgents under the Programme must generally have uniformunderstanding, knowledge and skills to be transferred tothe communities.Previously, the general community was often cut off incapacity building and other extension activities. Effortswere mostly concentrated on the management committeesto save time. This strategy is risky and has created manyproblems in our Programme communities. Lack of under-standing often creates lack of trust, and lack of trustbetween the community and the WATSAN are highlydiminishing for the sustainability of the facility. In theAudit process we emphasise strongly the need to involve allstakeholders of the community during the Audit visit andto call together as many as possible from the communityduring the debriefing. If there are any indications of internalconflicts in the community related to the water facility, theAudit team will try to understand the details of the conflictand explain in detail what is required from the differentparts to achieve sustainability of the facility.Achievements of the O&M auditThere are a number of benefits to be derived from theO&M Audit as outlined below:1. It allows the Programme staff to have an interactive andlearning/sharing session with the communities. In theprocess indigenous knowledge is acquired from thecommunity whilst professional (technical) advice isgiven. This interactive process enables the Audit Teamto understand the communities better in terms of whythey do or do not do certain things. The O&M Audit isable to unearth information that has been hidden fromroutine extension agents for many months or years.This is achieved through the searching questions basedon quick analysis of available records. It is common tohear District Programme Staff express surprise at howsome information obtained through the Audit has neverbeen disclosed to them even though they are almostalways with the communities.2. It involves the whole community and thereby creates agood platform for common understanding and aware-ness about O&M issues. Here, consensus is built amongthe WATSAN, the community and the Audit Team onthe state of the facility/management and the way for-ward. The use of local languages understood by thewhole community during presentations enable evenilliterates to be well informed and educated on O&M.Also, these debriefing sessions equip the communitywith simple tools they can use to check the performanceof the WATSAN.3.  The O&M Audit approach promotes teamwork withinthe Audit team as most of the problems are brainstormedon the spot. Here, each member of the Audit Teamdraws on his/her specialized knowledge and experienceto explain the causative factors of the problems and theappropriate solutions. He/she has to convince the otherteam members for a consensus. One has to be open tocriticism and arguments over one’s ideas and be pre-pared to concede and make quick compromises. Thelearning approach of the Audit has made the processvery enriching. The knowledge base, understandingand outlook of the Professionals therefore expand anddeepen with every single Audit. This is because; theproblems are different in different communities thusrequiring different solutions as appropriate for thesituation/environment in question.4. The Audit intervention is primarily aimed at assistingthe communities to overcome their O&M problems.However, the lessons have been valuable for otherSOLEY and THOGERSEN266purposes as well. Problems caused by design and con-structional deficiencies are noted for correction or fedback into future works. Knowledge gaps at all levels,right from the community through the District Office tothe Regional Programme Office are also identified TheAudit invariably represents a precise needs assessmenttechnique for the future and an O&M training curricu-lum can become focused, drawing on practical situa-tions. Further, the Audit findings enable design ofoptimal monitoring sheets and M&E systems, whichagain enable extension workers to push the communi-ties in the right direction during each monitoring visit.5.  The Audit has revealed that over 80% of all O&Mproblems are of managerial and/or financial nature.This dispels the notion of O&M as a purely Engineeringissue. Rather, it is a good ‘marriage’ between softwareand technical (hardware) issues. For instance, Exten-sion Agents, who are mainly software people, need toFigure 1.Responsiveness of communities to auditrecommendationsManagerial/Financial Recommendations33%67%Non-Responsive Responsive Technical Recommendations36%64%Non-Responsive Responsive understand the technical principles behind biologicalwater treatment (SSF, HRF/URF) and the estimation ofwater produced to be able to help the community tocalculate the tariff collection efficiency. These will beused in assisting the community on how best to operateand maintain their facility. In the same way, the hard-ware person needs to understand fundamental socialdynamics in order to be sensitive in his interactions andrelationships with the community. E.g. knowing thatconflict situations or institutional/organisational insta-bility is capable of throwing the management of thescheme into disarray.6. The response of communities to the Audit recommen-dations have been very positive. Below are illustrationsof the remarkable rates of responsiveness to the Auditrecommendations (managerial/financial and technical)by the communities within a 2 to 9 month period:ConclusionUnlike the pre-construction phase where the craze for afacility is the driving force for community action andresponsibility, the O&M phase has no tangible output tooffer. Convincing the communities on the grave implica-tions for sustainability if O&M is not given the same levelof commitment becomes the bait. This explanation iseffectively done through in-depth assessment and under-standing of the existing situation, made possible throughthe Audit.The high degree of responsiveness to the Audit recom-mendations therefore is a confirmation of the potency ofO&M Audit to create awareness in O&M and stimulateaction from all stakeholders. Both the short and long-termimpacts of the Audit make it a worthwhile venture to beconsidered by all Projects if they are to be sustainable. Thepositive changes in the performance of the managementcommittee (WATSAN Committee/Board) and the commu-nity and the refinement of major policy issues, design andtraining packages through feedback from the Audit inter-vention ensures value for money in future investments.FOSTER SOLEY, Ghana.JENS THOGERSEN, Ghana.

O&M audit, a practical tool for sustainability

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O&M audit, a practical tool for sustainability

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