Self Supply

Household-financed Partially Protected Well in Zambia

Household Partially Protected Well in Zambia

Self Supply Well, Dogodoma, Kati, Kouliloro, Mali

Improved Well in Dogodouma, Mali

Householder-financed well protection, Boura, Mali

The water and sanitation MDG targets in Af¬rica can only be reached by progress in rural areas. However this is where progress is the most difficult. Across Africa, rural households lag well below urban ones in coverage and quality of water services. The poorest and most remote communities are typically by-passed by sector programs and carry less political weight. The little that goes to rural communities is often not used effectively. Decentralization has brought government closer to them, but local authorities have been handicapped by the lack of adequate technical and financial support.

Self Supply is the improvement to household or community water supply through user investment in water treatment, supply construction and up-grading, and rainwater harvesting. It is based on incremental improvements in steps which are easily replicable, with technologies affordable to users.

This self-help approach is complementary to conventional communal supply, which is generally government-funded and which forms the backbone of rural water supply. However the latter is not equally sustainable everywhere, and is inadequately funded to reach MDG target coverage in sub-Saharan Africa. Self supply at household or community level generally implies strong ownership but also a sharing of the supply with those households nearby, often at no charge, offering effectively a privately managed communal service. All of the ‘unserved’ population use Self Supply, as do an unknown proportion of those regarded as served.

Steps such as those in the diagram below encourage owners to aspire to further improvements to supply in the same way as they implement progressive improvements to their houses, building on what they have already done, copying ideas from neighbours and from what they see in urban and peri-urban areas. This creates a dynamic marketing environment - found throughout the commercial world encouraging the fundamental urge to better oneself and family through providing an environment within which such changes are made easier. However certain factors are significantly limiting their ability to make such changes.