Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene September 2018 Vol.13 No.4 | Page 13

Water & Agriculture
How Can We Sustainably Increase Access to Water
Services in Rural Areas in Ethiopia?
The Water CKM
evaluation team conducted
water quality testing at
10 different water points
as part of the evaluation.
Photo credit: Kari Nelson
How Can We
Sustainably Increase
Access to Water
Services in Rural
Ethiopia?
Lessons learned
from the Millennium
Water Alliance’s
Ethiopia Program
What happens after
USAID-funded
WASH projects
end? Are communities able to sustain gains in water and
sanitation services after one, two, even 10 years? These are
some of the key questions the Water Communications and
Knowledge Management team answered through its recent
ex-post evaluation of the Millennium Water Alliance-
Ethiopia Program (MWA-EP) implemented between
2004–2009.
What did we evaluate? MWA-EP aimed to increase water
and sanitation access, decrease water, sanitation, and
hygiene (WASH)–related illnesses, promote integrated
water resource management, and develop a partnership
model for service delivery.
How did we evaluate it? The evaluation team sought to
understand whether the increased access to water and
sanitation attributed to the MWA-EP intervention proved
to be sustainable almost a decade later, and why. We used a
mixed-methods approach to data collection. We conducted
64 interviews, observations of 13 water points and 15
latrines, water quality tests at 10 water points, and collected
secondary data from government entities and NGOs.
What did we find? MWA-EP improved water access, at
least in the short term. However, we found only five of
the 13 visited water points functioning fully at the time
of our visit. An inventory of water points in the South
Gondar Zone of Amhara showed that only 44 percent of
MWA-EP–constructed water points functioned as of 2016
(in contrast to 68 percent of other water points). WASH
committees (WASHCOs) struggled to effectively manage
and raise the money necessary to maintain and repair the
water points in their community. In some places it remains
unclear who is in charge of water-point management,
repair, and water quality testing—WASHCOs, local
government, or NGOs? Perhaps this is why few if any
water points are tested regularly for water quality; seven
out of the 10 we tested came back positive for E. coli
contamination. We also observed that mechanical issues
with the water points affected functionality and reliability
more than seasonal variations in water flow.
Most households that had built a latrine during the project
continued to rebuild their latrines as necessary (when they
become full or are damaged) after the end of the activity.
Despite owners’ claims to always use their facilities, five
out of 15 latrines observed showed no signs of use, and
health extension workers noted significant challenges in
convincing people to change their behaviors. Sustaining
handwashing behaviors posed similar challenges. Though
people indicated that they washed their hands regularly,
none of the latrines observed had handwashing stations.
Why does this matter? Increasing rural access to safe water
sources and the adoption of healthy sanitation and hygiene
habits remain critical issues throughout the developing
world. Yet the sustainability of donor activities designed
to improve access is not always a given. Community water
point management is difficult to sustain effectively, and
new approaches may be necessary to increase access to
water services in rural areas over the long term.
Additionally, behavior change approaches have evolved
over time, underscoring some of the limitations of earlier,
simpler approaches like those used in the MWA-EP
activity.
By: Kari Nelson, senior technical advisor for the Water
Communications and Knowledge Management Project, and
Elizabeth Jordan, USAID water and sanitation specialist.
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • September 2018
13