Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation in Community Owned Water Supply Organizations: An Approach for Governance in Water Access & Sanitation Service Delivery in Tanzania

AbstractIncreasing access to clean and safe water is among the challenges and top priorities in the  Tanzania’s rural development programmes. The government of Tanzania with external support from Development Partners (DPs),... [ view full abstract ]

Abstract

Increasing access to clean and safe water is among the challenges and top priorities in the  Tanzania’s rural development programmes. The government of Tanzania with external support from Development Partners (DPs), implements water programmes in Local Government Authorities (LGAs) with a target to increase access to 85%. Community Owned Water Supply Organizations (COWSO) is the implementation framework for increasing access to safe and clean water & sanitation in rural areas.  COWSOs are community designated bodies for owning and managing water supply in rural areas. They operate and maintain water infrastructure, assets, revenue collection, contracts of service providers. Bagamoyo district council is among Local Government Authorities (LGAs) implementing Community Water Owned Supply Organizations in some villages. However, only 65% of Bagamoyo population has access to safe and clean water, which is below the national. The Government of Tanzania in partnership with African Development Bank and the World Bank (Development Partners) as key stakeholders financed COWSOs in support of increasing access to safe and clean water in the country and meeting targets in Five Year Development Plan (FYDP-II) 2016/17 -2020/21. The village community members participate in the construction of the water infrastructure by contributing labour and money between Tsh 10,000 - 15,000 per household for digging of trenches. Upon completion of the water supply infrastructure, the water supply is handled to COWSO, for management and monitoring. However, it has been found that many water points become dysfunctional after handing over to COWSOs. One of the attributed causes is the weak monitoring in COWSOs, that defeats the objective for increasing access to clean and safe water. The study was carried for finding out why COWSOs become dysfunctional after handing over. Four focus group discussions were conducted for data collection in Bagamoyo and Chalinze districts with the aim to find why community owned water points become dysfunctional? The findings showed that the structured monitoring and evaluation (top-down and bottom-up M&E) in the local water sector governance is weak in the governance of COWSOs. The paper concludes that community responsive M&E of their own water supply improves governance in COWSO. The community responsive M&E enables communities to develop their own targets, indicators, routine information collection, assessment and reporting (World Bank, 2002). This will eventually enhance access to safe and clean water and sanitation in rural areas.

Key words: Water, Community, M&E, Governance, Access