Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Community ownership of sources
Community ownership of water sources: an ideal we can never attain here in Uganda. Water users think that the government (or some other donor) should provide the source and also maintain it. Basically you take a goat to the river and also force it to drink. How can we make people understand that it is their responsibility to maintain their sources?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Educate them through community radios.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that you cannot eat your cake and have it. People need to be informed that they are part and parcel of the water sources, but the informing part should be done in such a way that they are able to clearly see and appreciate that they have a stake in the management of the water source. This requires involving them in the different decision making processes right from the start. They will then appreciate the fact that the water source is theirs for keeps and so they have to maintain it. As owners, they will feel that they are fully obliged to care for it and know that those who enabled them to get it only contributed to its being in place
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting and a true observation! It is clearly a huge set back to operation and maintenance of facilities and ultimately functionality rates.
ReplyDeleteThe situation however, varies across the country. For the case of Northern Uganda, the element of ownership is yet to be fully embraced by all the sector stakeholders. Having endured over 20 years of insurgency/instability in the region, which no doubt affected the socioeconomic strata of the region, the WASH sector too underwent rapid changes. The humanitarian approach to the sector came along with variations in access, functionality and more so attitudinal changes among users. For over 20 years, communities got used to free facilities-free boreholes, free maintenance, free land, e.t.c. Of course the precarious situation at the time was to blame; people were subjected to internally displaced camps.
Now that calm has returned to the region, development phase has taken shape, exemption of the region from contributing towards O&M has been lifted (by the Ministry of Water and Environment); there's need for concerted efforts among all the stakeholders towards coordinated service delivery! The role of local leaders/politicians is very critical in this course particularly in awareness campaigns.
In my subsequent blogs, I will be sharing some success stories of community ownership of drinking water sources..
Robert, we look forward to reading those success stories. Remember people learn best from experiences that worked. But most of all, we need to share these success stories with those people whom we want teach. So bring them out and we shall do the needful.
ReplyDeleteMeantime, true community ownership of sources is still a chimera!
Lydia Mirembe