How To Support Community Management Of Water Supplies: Guidelines For Manager

Community management of rural water supplies is widely considered to be a worthwhile management option. However, we know that communities cannot do this on their own. We know community management should not be an excuse for governments at national, distric or even local level to abandon their responsibility of rural water supplies. For community management to be feasible and sustainable management option, communities need to operate in an environment that is supportive. National governments need to ensure that a conductive legal framework is in place, that, for example, provides security for the investments that comunities make and that allows communities to develop and enforce by-laws. At more decentralized levels of regional or local governments comunities must know about and have acces to support from government structures themselves as well by non-governmental organisations (NGOs)or private sectors.

Communities may need technical support where technical requirements for system maintenance or upgrading go beyond their capacities. They may need help to build up their managerial capacities, for example, to help them perform financial duties related to system management or to deal with conflictd within the community or with neighbouring communities.