Going to scale with rural water supply: a reflection on experiences from sustaining community managed piped water schemes in rural Zimbabwe L. Dhoba

Access to safely managed water is a basic human right, yet rural water supply still remains a challenge in Zimbabwe. This study sought to assess sustainability of community managed piped water schemes developed under the rural WASH program as a model for rural water supply. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in the collection of data. The program developed 33 schemes out of which 36.4% have since broken down. System failure is high amongst diesel and electricity powered schemes compared to solar powered. Alarmingly, all the schemes have water point committees set up and trained with support from the project. The current statusquo therefore reflects a capacity gap amongst the set water point committees. In many cases they have failed to operationalize the water fund, institute water demand management, support and retain pump operatives. Moving forward, the sector therefore needs to adopt a demand responsive approach when targeting schemes for rehabilitation. This will help address structural issues in the management of the schemes like social capital, ownership of the investment and cost recovery. Government should also consider going to scale with the solar powered schemes which are seemingly resilient and compatible with the community based management system.


INTRODUCTION
History has it that very low priority has been given to issues of economic and social development in rural Zimbabwe pre-independence (Sibanda & Makwata ). In 1980, Zimbabwe adopted a dual system for rural water supply (RWS) characterized by hand-driven and motorized pumps (Kativhu ). A significant proportion of communitymanaged piped water schemes (CMPWS) were developed during this period servicing marginalized rural communities (Hoko et al. ). Many of the schemes were diesel powered, maintained through the District Development Fund's (DDF) three-tier maintenance system. However, this situation was to change midway through the decade with the Zimbabwe national master plan for rural water recommending that priority be put on primary water supplies with CMPWS being constructed only after the entire rural population had access to improved primary water supplies In a study on time spent fetching water and the alternatives forgone for women in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Agesa & Agesa () demonstrated that due to lack of piped water, household members in SSA, typically girls, fetch water from sources located far away from their homes. An econometric study presented in their research considered fetching water/schooling time trade-off as a possible and partial explanation for the relatively high dropout rate for girls in school which is a peril to the entire 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In this regard, the main objective of this study was to synthesize the major lessons learnt from the implementation of CMPWS as a model for rural water supply (RWS) in Zimbabwe. Based on this, recommendations were proffered on how to further strengthen this model for increased efficiency and effectiveness. Special focus was given to issues of policy, institutional arrangements, and capacities related to CMPWS.
Theory of changethe rural WASH program's (RWP) water infrastructure pillar Realizing universal access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030 presents a huge challenge for all countries, not just those with low incomes. Achieving SDG 6.1 means addressing the 'unfinished business' of extending services to 844 million people who still lack basic water services, and progressively improving the quality of services to 2.1 billion people who lack water accessible on premises, available when needed and free from contamination (UN-Water ). In 2012, years before the onset of the SDG era, the RWP had already embraced piped water schemes (PWS) as a fitting model for RWS. The philosophy behind it was that improved access to higher level service was going to trigger improvement in health and economic well-being for the rural poor (GoZ ).
Zimbabwe is a good case study of the disastrous consequences of neglecting RWS. A breakdown in the most basic elements of water and sanitation infrastructure underpinned the 2008/2009 cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe (Cuneo et al. ). Revival of the PWS model was guided by the project's water infrastructure pillar's theory of change ( Figure 1). This pillar anticipated that the development of PWS was going to increase access to potable water by communities resulting in reduced cases of diarrhoeal diseases and hence an improvement in the lives of the rural poor (GoZ ).
The RWP targeted to develop 33 schemes across the five project provinces of Mashonaland West, Midlands, Masvingo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. A scheme was designed to service at least 1200 people. A community based management (CBM) system was employed as the strategy to support O&M of the schemes. Deliberate effort was made to solarize some of the schemes with an objective to make the O&M bill manageable at the community level. Each PWS was allocated, on average, USD50,000 to cover costs for feasibility study, civil works and commissioning (GoZ ). In return, recipient communities contributed locally available resources and labour.
Upfront measures that were put in place by the programme to strengthen sustainability of the rehabilitated schemes included capacity building and equipping of pump operators and water point committees (WPCs). Identified pump operators were exposed to on-job training and certification by the contractor during rehabilitation of the schemes. The training curriculum was structured to cover critical O&M issues.

METHODOLOGY
The study used qualitative and quantitative research methods in data collection. Questionnaires were administered to 33 WPCs selected using convenience sampling.
The questionnaire solicited for information on a number of variables ranging from households served and their characteristics, presence and composition of WPCs, water fund, alternative uses of water, pumping mechanisms and other key questions of a technical nature. The questionnaire method of data collection was chosen for its capacity to collect bulk-structured data that can be easily analyzed using Excel.
Focus group discussions (FGDs) were also held with members of the programme management team (PMT) to obtain their views for providing oversight support to CMPWS. This was also complimented by online interviews conducted with selected key informants who included Social Service Officers from five rural local authorities and District Development Fund (DDF) Coordinators at the provincial level.
The qualitative component of the research also focused on a desk review of existing project documents and past literature on PWS. This also included a recollection of policy and strategic issues around PWS raised during a thematic round table discussion on SDG6 held on the sidelines of the 6th Session of the African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development on the 24th February 2020. Some of the key documents consulted include the RWP document, project baseline and endline survey reports, including reports from quality assurance visits by government structures, a report on the rapid assessment of CMPWS and also midterm project evaluation reports.

Targeting of schemes for rehabilitation
A total of five out of the eight rural provinces in Zimbabwe benefitted from phase-one of the RWP whose water infrastructure pillar sought to increase communities' access to safe water supply through the rehabilitation of 33 PWS. To harmonise the rehabilitation process, the RWP had a defined protocol guiding all the programme districts. The protocol addressed a broad range of issues from pre-identification of sites, community awareness, water demand analysis, and preliminary design to capacity testing of the borehole for confirmation of yield and reliability of the proposed water source. Water sampling and testing was also carried out to establish any special needs for water treatment. All the 33 schemes rehabilitated under the RWP went through this protocol. A deliberate attempt was made to equip some of the targeted schemes for rehabilitation with solar powered pumps. Table 1 gives a summary of the pumping mechanisms for the 33 rehabilitated schemes.
In summary, 39.4% of the schemes were put on solar, 30.3% diesel, 18.2% electricity and 12.1% gravity fed.
From the findings, 36.4% of the 33 schemes rehabilitated by the project have since broken down with beneficiary communities reportedly failing to foot bills for the requisite rehabilitations ( Figure 4).

Operationalization of the water point fund
Study results showed that 100% of the 33 schemes rehabilitated under the RWP had an established water fund. In 88% of the schemes, water users were being levied USD0.50 per month per household, USD1.00 in 3% whilst in the other remaining 9% water funds were there but defunct and no contributions were being made by water users (Table 2).

Social capital
The manner in which RWS systems are run and managed is a large determent of their sustainability. The quality of management is in itself a product of the social capital existing amongst water users and between the institution of water users and its support structures. Ninety-four per cent of the schemes rehabilitated under the RWP are community managed, meaning that communities are largely responsible for all O&M issues affecting the schemes. In the remaining 6% government, through either the Rural District Council (RDC) or the Zimbabwe National Water Authority

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L. Dhoba | Experiences from sustaining community managed piped water schemes Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development | 10.3 | 2020 Of the 22 schemes where water was being put to multiple uses outside domestic, the most prominent activity was gardening, followed by livestock watering and brick moulding as summarized in Figure 6.  In that regard, their monthly contributions were just meant to cover other petty issues.
Across all the five provinces, the study findings also indicated that regardless of the very low user fees being charged, some 6.2% of the total beneficiary households still fail to honour their monthly contributions.   including wages for staff, O&M costs and depreciation, all of which compromises the sustainability of water points.

DISCUSSION
Outside the issue of finances, social capital is also fundamental in enhancing the sustainability of RWS systems and becomes handy when dealing with complicated systems like PWS. Its major elements include civic networks, norms of reciprocity, and generalized trust (Bhandari & Yasunobu ). The whole notion of social capital is centred on community social relationships.
Across the 33 districts, the social fabric connecting water users has been weakened by years of non-functionality of the schemes. This has been made worse by the fact that a number of the schemes served in excess of one ward.
This brought in a number of heterogeneity issues compromising resilience and further growth of social capital. The degree to which a WSS fulfils its public health function is a direct variant of the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall management system in place. This is exhibited in a number of ways, one of which is WDM. A research by Kativhu ()

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The study presents an insecure situation regarding the future of CMPWS as a model for rural water supply. Considering that access to safe water is now a recognized human right nationally and the world over, urgent action is needed to remedy the status-quo.
The study findings highlight some salient points critical in understanding and hopefully working out strategies to ensure the sustainability of PWS. First, it highlights the general functionality issues around CMPWS. The failure rate is glaringly high amongst electricity and diesel-powered schemes, the core reasons being high running costs and erratic supply of diesel and electricity in the market which affects the water pumping efficiency. It is therefore recommended that government goes to scale with solarpowered PWS whose running costs drop drastically postimplementation.
Second, targeting of schemes for rehabilitation is a key determinant factor for the sustainability of RWS systems.
Rehabilitation of CMPWS ought to be carried out under the guidance the key principles of a demand-responsive approach to rural development. When establishing a CMPWS, the selection criteria ought to prioritize communities already in demand for water and then establish how best to set up a scheme together. That way, the already existing demand would guarantee ownership of the scheme and assure future support towards requisite O&M.
Third is also the issue of social capital, which is a function of community social relations. The fact that the CMPWS model works through CBM means that individual households and their relationships play a pivotal role in the future operations of the PWS. Before setting up any scheme, responsible authorities ought to institute a thorough assessment of the level of social capital existing amongst targeted beneficiaries. Whatever comes out of that assessment is what then defines a community. In cases where social capital is highly compromised, it is better to invest in reconstruction of the social fabric first before any operations. The danger of ignoring these issues is that they always manifest themselves during the operational phase, compromising an enabling environment for sustainability of the schemes.
Fourth is the issue of water demand management. More often than not, communities treat water as an infinite, free access resource. However, with the current climate change issues, evidence clearly presents a recession in water tables calling for an urgent need to strengthen monitoring of who gets the resource, when and how. WPCs thus now need to be exposed to special training in critical thinking, allowing them to articulate complexities in the management of intricate water supply issues like WDM. The fact that user fees currently being levied on water users by WPCs are not guided by household water consumption is in itself a missed opportunity to enforce water saving while at the same time maximizing revenue collection.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
All relevant data are included in the paper or its Supplementary Information.