WRC DSSII Deliverable 6 report - Community owned water access case studies

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WaterResearchCommission

Executive Manager: Water Utilisation in Agriculture

Water Research Commission

Pretoria

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rural communities. Management of water resources and water systems by communities goes back

ways, community-based app roaches enabled development agencies to draw from community

reflects a participatory and sustainable development perspective (Krantz, 2001). The key oitns in this

approach can be summarized as follows.

and community development factors.

water sector.

and mentor them during project construction, and transfer water supply projects to these

Community owned water access (COWA) is a form of decentralized water management that involves

operation, and maintenance of their own water systems, which can offer several benefits, such as:

and interests of marginalized groups are respected and protected and

collective identity, agency, and ownership of their water resources

accountability of water services.

rural water supply schemes. Lessons are drawn from historical publications and informal

operating a small water supply system (self-supply) without the involvement and support of a water

construction, operation and maintenance of a water scheme in collaboration with a community-

financing arrangements, cost-recovery strategy and type of services they want. Spring water

options.

organisations and international donors in the community water space which allowed for funding

organisation would engage community stakeholders, conduct an assessment, confirm water as a

capacitated to take some projectmanagement roles as well as operations and maintenance roles

movement towards developing guidelines, procedures and case examples toward institutionalising

water services to rural communities. It is an attempt to promote a management mechanism that

would see rural communities collaborating with public organisations.

ways for improving water services and social accountability indicators. It is based on the notion of

community. There are two main outcomes of this phase.The first outcome is a well-packaged

defines and assigns roles and responsibilities of community members in making a water

project successful and sustainable. Cost recovery is a key component of a community

accountability plan.

community members monitor all the processes that are involved in the implementation,

operations and maintenance of a water project. The main outcome of this phase is a

water sources and includes the requirements that water supply systems should cause little or

management models into rural water services provision. This call to re-integrate community-based

management is influenced by the fact that communities with no or limited access to safe and

reliable water services are in most cases voiceless and unheard, and consequently revert to

alternative water sources which, in many cases would be polluted. This makes municipalities

assessments for proposed water supply schemes.

water use implications for their village.

was “promised’ at the beginning. This process requires careful explanation on an ongoing basis.

Community members need to engage with and negotiate all parameters of the scheme to be able to

access options, rather than being the passive recipients of externally designed and implemented

often have to deal with many problems, conflicts and complaints on an ongoing basis.

ØThe traditional ward councils

access to the right tools, an inventory of spare parts, reliable transport, mechanisms for reporting

water schemes by themselves. These include actions such as replacing leaking taps, fixing leakages in

working relationships with the technical and institutional partners are critical for these aspects.

operators, as well as in following prescribed procedures for access. These activities all fall within

corrective maintenance actions and are demand driven, rather than being preventative. For the

From discussions with local water committees in Giyani, members are confident that monthly fees

from users is an option. The value of such fees should in their opinion not be higher than R20/ user/

month, given that most households in these villages are extremely poor and unemployment levels

are very high. This is clearly not a full cost recovery option but can assist greatly in overall

members becomes unwieldy, with high levels of effort spent on policing and the resultant conflicts

often lead to failure of the process. Below are some suggestions of how this can be managed:

ØMonthly contributions by households are recorded by the water committee and those who

ØDivide the village into sections with smaller numbers of households and manage monthly

Commission with a focus on the Multiple Use Systems Model, the water-energy food nexus and

Programme partners include the Water Research Commission, The University of the Western Cape,

MDM, Department of Water and Sanitation and the local Water Service Authority, the Department

Implementation and innovation options have been designed and are being implemented in 9 sites; 5

orientation of local officials. These include for example:

ØEmployment of local operators through the WSA who are managed at local level by village

ØAd hoc maintenance of infrastructure at community level through these voluntary water

ØOrganisation of the local communities into management areas or sections to effect more

ØVarious levels of self-supply options, which include individuals and groups.

Mbhele, Polasi, & Zulu, 2022). Presently Municipal WSAs are primarily concerned with communities

community members.

and community perspectives.

water service provision systems, both urban and rural, leading to confusion and the need to update

Firstly, there is now recognition for self-supply – a self-funded, self-managed option with oversight

citizens need to be registered on the municipal indigency listings to be eligible for non-tariffed

reliance on surface water. These include groundwater, water harvesting, water-recycling and the re-

Since there is no national definition for small scale economic growth therefore for the purposes of

from engaging in commercial activities instead householders are strongly encouraged to use water

for economic advancement. Water consumption for large scale commercial use, such as commercial

out by the national government in the Reconstruction and Development Plan in 1994. Whilst this is

In Mayephu as in other villages in Giyani and rural communities in general, Municipal Infrastructure

members use water for multiple uses depending on their ability to access larger quantities of water

(Van Koppen, Moriarty, & Butterworth, 2010). This generally occurs through using, via household

Initially, water for Mayephu Village was sourced from the Letavi River through a bulk supply scheme

response, the community transitioned to a system relying on three community-level boreholes,

which is then distributed through approximately 108 communal standpipes (Jovanovic, A., &

Maswanganye, S. (November 2022). Mayephu Water Management System Analysis. [Internal

mainlines to standpipes throughout the village. To improve functioning of the system – solar energy

reservoirs that aren’t presently being used but could still be functional. For one of these the

reservoir is leaking and for the other the borehole is not working due to cable theft in the past.

raised the question of refurbishing these two smaller systems; specifically in light of the fact that the

watering, where Tsogang has assisted by removing silt to improve availability of water.

once a week. At present, due mainly to a reduction in capacity of the two main boreholes (over-

week on Fridays.

capita per day)

adjusted their crop varieties, watering routines, and soil management practices accordingly.

communities must be empowered to monitor the output of their water source in order to decide

Management of operations of a water system occurs in two parts.

Limpopo with self-supply water provision options for multipurpose use in 2019, with funding

Upon drilling, the groups needed to be further consolidated, as only 2 of the 4 boreholes drilled

complexity and scale of what they were undertaking, thinking this was going to be easy. Allocation of

of internal conflict and difficulties with the

monthly payments. A record is kept of individual

Some months, payments have been complete, but

other months where household cash flow is

Suggestions made by the group for improvements.

who pay for this service, usually around R30/ month, after an initial investment of around

for springs is on a first come, first serve basis and there is no coordination of efforts at a village level.

for free, but amounts are limited generally to a 25l bucket per person, per day. There is also a shop

who have to buy water are also the poorest in the community and water access for them is

and averages between 50-100L. This is more inline with international standards for basic water

In the early 1990’s Mvula Trust and DWA implemented a water supply scheme for Turkey villages 1-

access. The community has been unable to effectively police the latter, as they have not authority to

focus on equity and multi-purpose uses. As a borehole scheme, pumping is required, which requires

ongoing monthly contributions from members. This has been going very well in this village, with

agreed to a lesser supply during winter to avoid over-pumping of their borehole. There have been no

collaboration and payment. They did however stipulate that payment should be to a localized

committee which can manage the maintenance and operation on a day-to-daybasis, rather than a

and maintenance, but that problems come in when expensive items break that cannotbe replaced,

(Drakensberg) region of KwaZulu-Natal and consists of 99 households. The community here has no

Stulwane/Costone area were considered for development as part of a small community owned

water access scheme, supported by Mahlathini Development Foundation and WWF-South Africa

with corporate funding from Pepsico. The project was also supported with technical expertise by an

agricultural engineer, experienced in developing low cost, gravity fed systems. The water sources

would likely be required to cover the project area. In 2022 the project developed one of the springs

(in green).

were excluded as potentials, due to low water availability and low potential for providing water

access to a number of households.The in-stream springs at higher elevations were investigated.

from this tank (or tanks) would then be split to each village section (Stulwane A and Stulwane B).

abstraction points water supply couldreach all parts of the village sections. Water quality tests were

maintenance to the off take may be required during the rainy season every year.

organization.

Implementation was planned and separated into 3 phases. This was to organize and strictly keep

about channeling water from the source to the first pressure tank then to the header tank. The last

community has not been consulted at all regarding the placement of

Mahlathini is a much better option as this is then within the

finalisation of collection of community contributions by end January

addressing these challenges, communities can enhance their resilience, improve water security, and

Limpopo? Water SA, 47(2), 253-263. doi:https://doi.org/10.17159/wsa/2021.v47.i2.10921

UN DESA. (2023). The Sustainable development goals report2023: Special Edition.Retrieved from

ØContinuation of implementation for the CRA learning groups across three provinces

ØOngoing involvement in CoPs: AN-capacity building and learning, PGS-SA, Northern