Niveles de Cultura
1.2.2.2. Supuestos sobre la gestión de la integración interna
mentioned in box 14 below as observed in several case studies. These are the factors that affect the Technical Capacity Pillar of borehole sustainability. The desired state is to have a water ppoint committee that has adequate techncial capacity to operate, maintain and manage the borehole. The strategy to manage this pillar is by ensuring that technical capacity of water point committee is enhanced. This strategy is supported by Carter (2004) who states that for rural water supply services to be sustainable then water point committees should be trained, skilled and committeed.
“…we cant maintain this borehole as required because some time to get the spare parts we need to travel a distance more than the cost of the spare part itself…”
“…the challenge sometimes is the spare parts…we can raise the money but we cant get the spare parts…”
“…sometimes the committee waits until the system breaks down, they needed to do preventive maintanance…”
“…the people who were trained in borehole management are all gone, some moved from this village and some died, the current members were just incoperated into the system to fill the numbers, they have never been trained…”
“…this is all voluntary works and we don’t get paid we sometimes spend our money when the borehole fund has no money…”
“…financing is key, the community members need to contribute for maintenance of this borehole but the borehole fund now has no money…”
The intervieews comments in box 14 above show that operation, maintenance and management of a water point is affected by many factors as follows:
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1) Spare parts are not available within the vicinity
2) Committee has no skills to conduct preventive maintenance
3) New water point committee members were not trained for community based management of boreholes
4) Boreholes did not have enough funds for operation, maintenance and management of the borehole.
These above factors can be presented in a Reality Tree as in figure 16 below showing how the factors interelate.
During the data collection time it was found that factors that affect technical capacity of water point committees in managing their boreholes were not managed and as a result water point committee capacity was compromised and borehole functionality was affected. The desired state can therefore be achieved if the problem root causes are addressed. The current research has found three root causes for insufficient capacity of the water point committee to conduct OMM as follows: 1) Poor access to spare parts; 2) Lack of WPCs training to conduct OMM; 3) Lack of funds to conduct OMM . Figure 16 above presents the relationship of the factors that affect OMM and the factors are explained below:
4.7.4.1 Root Cause #1: Poor Access to Spare Parts (RC9)
Poor access to spare parts was noted during focus group discussions to be one of the reasons of committees failure to conduct OMM. Harvey (2008) support the finding that access to spare parts is critical for sustainability of rural water supply.
Figure 16: Factors Affecting Technical Capacity Pillar of Sustainability. Technical capacity to operate, maintain and
manage the borehole infrastructure
Poor Access to spare parts
Training of water committee members
on CBM
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Substantiating “lack of access to spare parts” as a root cause - if spare parts were readily available in the vicinity then water point committees could have succeded in fixing the problem. Poor maintenance schedules and the absence of a robust supply chain for borehole spare parts negatively impacts boreholes maintenance and repairs (Fisher, 2011; Fosenka, 2008; Harvey and Reed, 2007).
In the current research spare parts were not available because government has not establshed a realiable spare parts supply chain that would enable easy access of spare parts for borehole equipment like Afridev pumps.
Proposed Solutions for Improving Access to Spare Parts.
1) Establish spare parts supply chains at district level (S13) – Readily available/accessible spare parts supply chains are known to reduce down time period of a water system (Montgomery et al., 2009). Government and service providers like NGOs should ensure that where boreholes are drilled a reliable proper spare parts supply chain exisit. Training of locals in manufacturing of spare parts is good as long as quality and production is well regulated by policy at all levels. Furthermore, Fisher (2011) has indicated that in order to sustain boreholes repairs and maintenance, there is need for the policy framework from Government outlining its support for rural communities. This should be in the form of the Government’s long term funds mobilization strategy, as well as a policy guideline standardizing the hand pump technology. For instance, in the current research, 83.0% of respondents indicated that the standardization of hand pumps (use of the Afridev) has enabled Pump Maintenance Technicians (PMTs) master the repair and maintenance of the boreholes.
2) Create a fast wearing spare parts inventory (S14) – boreholes committee members should ensure that always there is stock of fast wearing parts of the borehole at community level, this will ensure that at times of breakdowns atleast the water point committee has spare parts readily available to fix the problems. Fisher (2011) further indicates that borehole toolkits and spare parts should be located within local hardware stores within communities or available at the nearest market centre or town to enhance access.
4.7.4.2 Root Cause #2: Lack of Training for Water Point Committees to Conduct Efficient OMM (RC10)-
Training is paramount to enable the water point committee execute their job professionally. When not trained it is difficult to understand what it takes to prevent frequent breakdowns or lengthy down time periods.
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Substantiating lack of training for the water point committtee as a root cause – If the committee were trained on operation, maintenance and management of their water point then preventive maintenance could have been adequately done and serious breakdowns could have been avoided. In the current research it was observed that refresher trainings could not be done because they are not part of the implementation plans of the Ministry of Water or District assembly.
Proposed Solutions for Ensuring that Water Point Committees are Adequately Trained for OMM
1) Districts should initiate regular training courses for water point committtees (S15) – Regular training sessions by the district will help in providing a window for training new members as well as refresher trainings that could be given to already trained water point committees.
2) Develop community water point trainer of trainers (S16) – These community trainer of trainers would help in training new members of the water point committee who are selected to fill in gaps left by members who no longer work with the committees. Sufficient capacity at community level such as hand pump technical skills acquisition and the availability of trained Pump Maintenance Technicians in a community is also absolutely essential. Trainer of trainers could also cover up on locations where Water Point Committees, Pump Maintenance Technicians and other interest groups have all lost interest in sustaining the boreholes; and, where trained Pump Maintenance Technicians (mostly volunteers) at community-level have migrated away from the community and a new generation has not been trained.
4.7.4.3 Root Cause #3: Inadequate Funding for Borehole OMM (RC11)
The other factor found to affect OMM is inadequate funding for borehole OMM. Funding is supported by Carter (2008) to be the most critical thing for sustainability of rural water supply.
Substantiating “inadequate funding for borehole OMM” as a root cause - if there is no funding for conducting OMM then borehole maintenance will be compromised and subsequently the lengthy down time periods and frequent breakdowns will be experienced. Many consumers can not afford to raise the required monthly contributions that could help with complex maintenance activities or rehabilitation. Boreholes need rehabilitation or major maintenance works after ten years or so of operation and to do that subtantial amount of resources are required to hire a compressor to air blow the water hole and sometimes to replace the infrastructure.
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Proposed Solutions for Increasing Funding for Borehole OMM.
1) Initiate creative ways of fundraising (S17) – by initiating creating ways of fundraising like the village savings loans money is easily raised to support rehabilitation or major maintenance activities. However this start from sensitization, there is always the need to sensitize and educate communities about the need to raise funds to manage (maintain and repair) boreholes from their internally generated resources than to wait for hand-outs from donors or Government (Fosenka, 2008; Harvey and Reed, 2007).