Non-functionality rates of 30-50%, high levels of non-revenue water and persistent poor water quality are all common challenges facing water supply service provision in most low- and middle-income countries, especially where unsupported or basic forms of community-based management are applied. However, adopting professionalised management arrangements based on public or private service provision and supported forms of community-based management can result in substantive improvements in service quality. Significantly, over recent years many low- and middle-income countries are making progress applying professionalised management arrangements for rural and small-town water supply service provision and have begun upscaling these approaches.
Professionalising management arrangements for water supply service provision is essential if we are to ensure the delivery of safe, reliable and equitable services for everyone, everywhere and forever, and represents one of the foundational challenges facing the WASH sector. Aguaconsult has been at the forefront of the sector’s efforts in this area, assisting governments and development partners to review existing management arrangements, design more professionalised management arrangements tailored to the local context and to pilot or upscale the application of these more professionalised arrangements. Our work supporting the professionalisation of management arrangements spans the following services:
Mapping the management arrangements for water supply services applied within a given context and assessing their relative strengths and weaknesses, including assessing costs and financing sources.
Developing and applying tools and resources to help professionalise management arrangements, such as life-cycle cost analysis and decision support tools.
Supporting the design of more professionalised management arrangements, including defining the split in roles and responsibilities between service providers, service authorities and regulatory actors.
Evaluating development partner initiatives and programmes to strengthen or pilot alternative management arrangements in support of government priorities.
Distilling learnings and trends from across low- and middle-income countries regarding the professionalisation of management arrangement.
Designing and facilitating global and national learning events centred on determining necessary actions to professionalise the management of water supply services.
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation; 2022-2026
Strategic Global Evaluation Partner to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Technical support for the development of future strategy for the Foundation’s Safe Water Initiative in Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda, as well as support to grantee monitoring, learning and knowledge management for professionalisation of rural water globally.
USAID; 2021-2026
Rural Evidence and Learning for Water (REAL-Water). Leadership of the REAL-Water theme on improving rural water management, which investigates how management structures, practices, and local contextual factors influence the performance of rural water service providers as well as how targeted efforts improve the management and performance of rural water service providers.
USAID; 2019-2021
Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. Long-term technical assistance to the University of Colorado at Boulder as part of USAID-funded project generating evidence on how systems-based approaches can improve sustainability, with a focus on the maintenance of rural water services.
Government of Malawi; 2022-2024
Professionalising Malawi’s Management of Rural Water Supply Services.Situation assessment of the primary management models utilised for rural and small-town water supply service provision and the specification of two management models for piloting by development partners under a coordinated process led by the Government of Malawi.
World Bank
Sustainability Assessment of Rural Water Service Delivery Models. Assessment using a multi-country case study approach to identify key learnings, good practices and challenges toward building sector capacity and strengthening sustainable service delivery models for rural areas across 16 countries.
WaterAid
Management Models for Piped Water Supply Services. Study of 10 management models for piped water supply services in rural and small-town contexts, which identified a typology of management models, major elements affects sustainable service provision and factors to consider when selecting a given management model.
