The Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) is a global knowledge network. It uncovers and shares good practices, provides guidelines and tools, and promotes proven innovations. Skat hosts the secretariat for RWSN, a role which involves coordinating the work of the four flagships and communicating with the 2,000 members, through the website, quarterly newsletters and email. With support from SDC, through collaboration between the main partners (UNICEF, WSP, AfDB and WaterAid), RWSN continues to foster learning and knowledge exchange with respect to its four flagships:

• Cost-effective Boreholes
• Sustainable Rural Water Supplies
• Self Supply
• Handpump Technologies

RWSN considers safe water as a fundamental right and essential for human development and aims to improve access for rural people. Unfortunately, during the last 25 years, rural water supply efforts have failed to make much impact. In Africa, progress has been slower than the population growth. Not only have we failed to provide safe water, we have also failed to keep the water points in serviceable condition. RWSN estimates that only two out of three handpumps are working at any time in Africa.

RWSN is concerned about this slow progress. Why have some of the established principles not worked as expected? How suitable are these approaches in practice? To reflect on a generation of myths in rural water supply, the RWSN Steering Committee held a small workshop in September 2008.  

Several causes were identified, and it was agreed that there needs to be a shift in emphasis from the focus on numerical targets to sustainable service delivery. Issues of how to support the users after construction and how to pay for the long-term costs of operation and maintenance need to be addressed. Alternatives to the status quo, where 90 to 100% of investment costs is met by external funders, need to be examined. Self-supply, involving user initiatives, and considering drinking water alongside other water uses, provides one alternative. Attention to capacity building and adequate human resources needs to be supported. Monitoring of long-term outcomes should lead to remedial action in case something goes wrong. Clear professional standards need to be enforced, and more accountability, designed to mitigate corruption and mismanagement is required.

The almost universal support for decentralised governance and service provision has triggered welcome attention to the needs of district-level actors – including both government and local-level service providers. Decentralisation has the objective of bringing decision-making, service delivery and accountability closer to the people.

There is hope, and good examples of new approaches exist. RWSN works towards a move from today’s myths to flexible, adaptive approaches that focus on long-term outcomes rather than on short-term targets.