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What’s Working, Where, and for How Long: A 2016 Water Point Update

Authors:
Brian Banks
Brian Banks
Brian Banks
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Sean Furey at Skat Foundation
Sean Furey
  • Skat Foundation
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Abstract

In 2010, the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) Executive Steering Committee published “Myths of the Rural Water Supply Sector” (RWSN, 2010). Among the seven myths, No. 2 “Building water supply systems is more important than keeping them working” highlighted estimates from 2007 and 2009 of handpump functionality in selected Sub-Saharan countries (RWSN, 2009, Baumann, 2009). The summary statistic that around 36% of handpumps are not working at any one time in Sub-Saharan is perhaps the most widely quoted RWSN output. This update to the 2009 handpump functionality statistics builds upon that foundation in several important ways.
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What’s Working, Where, and for How Long:
A 2016 Water Point Update
7th RWSN Forum, November 29, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
BACKGROUND
In 2010, the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) Executive Steering
Committee published “Myths of the Rural Water Supply Sector” (RWSN,
2010). Among the seven myths, No. 2 “Building water supply systems is
more important than keeping them working” highlighted estimates from
2007 and 2009 of handpump functionality in selected Sub-Saharan
countries (RWSN, 2009, Baumann, 2009). The summary statistic that
around 36% of handpumps are not working at any one time in Sub-Saharan
is perhaps the most widely quoted RWSN output.
WHY A 2016 UPDATE?
This update to the 2009 handpump functionality statistics builds upon that
foundation in several important ways:
Beyond estimates to real data: Water point mapping is a whole new
area of endeavour that has opened up due improvements in
Information Communications Technologies (ICTs), which were not in
widespread use in 2009.
Not just handpumps: Water point data provides insights into a range of
water point types. An analysis on the functionality of different types of
water points has been included.
New insights: This update includes an analysis of functionality of water
points constructed within two years of the survey date.
Transparency: All findings are based on data that is publically available
through the Water Point Data Exchange at www.WaterPointData.org.
Data Availability: Countries have only been included in this
benchmarking analysis if they meet criteria for having significant data
availability.
Regular updates: This summary can be updated on an annual basis,
integrating any new data available.
METHODOLOGY: FUNCTIONALITY BY COUNTRY
Countries were included in the benchmark if they had significant data available
through the Water Point Data Exchange. This includes countries where:
•More than two sources had contributed more than 100 records each; or
•The number of water point records analysed exceeded 50% of the number of
water points expected (based on JMP rural population data divided by 250
people).
Functionality figures are based on the “#status_id” field. Cases where it was
unknown whether water was flowing at the time of the visit were only added to
the denominator of the functionality estimate.
METHODOLOGY: FUNCTIONALITY BY AGE
Data was downloaded from the Water Point Data Exchange. All water points with
an installation year (#install_year) at least one year greater than the date of the
inventory (#report_date) were included. Water points with a functionality of
“unknown” were removed from the sample. The percentage of water points of a
given age that were functional (“yes” for #status_id) was captured for each age.
This information has been plotted below.
Conclusions and Next Steps
•Water point mapping data has experienced explosive growth in Africa
and Asia and bodes well for an Asset Management approach that is
common in urban water supply but is less common in rural.
•An average of 78% of water points are functional across the 11 countries
analyzed.
•The high failure rates early after installation are troubling: almost 15%
after one year and 25% of water points are non-functional by their
fourth year after installation. This indicates widespread problems with
poor quality water point installation, due to a range of problems that
may include professionalism and skills around contracts, construction
and supervision; borehole siting; lack of quality control of hardware; or
lack of post-construction monitoring and problem resolution.
•Handpumps are often singled out as technology that fails, but analysis of
other water point types show similar functionality levels, and that tens
of thousands of handpumps are providing a service.
•Additional data will help to provide a more robust analysis, and updated
data will allow for analysis of change over time and perhaps on different
metrics that are better indicators of service level quality.
Sources
Baumann, E. (2009). May-day! May-Day! Our handpumps are not working!. RWSN Perspective No 1, RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland
Carter, R. C. and Ross, I. (2016) Beyond ‘functionality’ of handpump supplied rural water services in developing countries. Waterlines
DOI: 10.1021/es402086n.
Fisher, M. B., K. F. Shields, T. U. Chan, E. Christenson, R. D. Cronk, H. Leker, D. Samani, P. Apoya, A. Lutz, and J. Bartram (2015). Understanding
handpump sustainability: Determinants of rural water source functionality in the Greater Afram Plains region of Ghana. Water Resour. Res., 51,
8431–8449, doi:10.1002/2014WR016770.
Foster, T. (2013). Predictors of Sustainability for Community-Managed Handpumps in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and
Uganda. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (21), pp 12037–12046.
Pearce, J, Greggio E., and Stephens E. (2015a). A Decade of WPM. RWSN: Mapping and Monitoring, RWSN.
Pearce, J, Greggio E., and Stephens E.(2015b). Failure and the Future. Water Point Mapping and Monitoring Series, RWSN.
Pearce, J, Greggio E., and Stephens E. (2015c). District Monitoring. Water Point Mapping and Monitoring Series, RWSN.
Pearce, J, Greggio E., and Stephens E.(2015d). National Monitoring. Water Point Mapping and Monitoring Series, RWSN.
RWSN (2009). Handpump Data 2009. Selected Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland.
RWSN (2015). Investment in rural water supply delivers results. Briefing note on key findings fr om the Joint Monitoring Programme 2015 report1
relating to rural water supply. RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland.
RWSN Exec. Com. (2010). Myths of the Rural Water Supply Sector. RWSN Perspective No 4, RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland.
UN (2016). https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg6, (accessed 19.04.2016).
METHODOLOGY: FUNCTIONALITY BY TYPE
All water points were hand-coded as one of the water point types below based on
the value provided for the “#water_tech” field. The functionality for each type of
water point was based on the “#status_id” field. Records with a value of “unknown”
for this field were omitted. The six countries with the largest amount of data
available were included for this analysis.
Country* # of Water Points (2 years old) % Non-Functional
Sierra Leone
2,778 10
Afghanistan
4,134 17
Liberia
1,160 18
Uganda
8,660 22
Tanzania
1,246 27
*Data for the five countries with the most data on two-year-old water points is
included in this table All applicable data is included in the graph.
Poster by Brian Banks (Global Water Challenge) and Sean Furey (Skat Consulting Ltd.)
Brian.Banks@globalwaterchallenge.org Sean.Furey@skat.ch
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... In the drylands, investments in water are critical for water and food security, where access to water is essential for domestic and productive uses, including livestock production and rain-fed cultivation. Yet, ensuring the sustainability of the water investments in the drylands remains an ongoing challenge, with evidence of approximately 20-40% failure rates of rural water supplies across East Africa and beyond (Banks and Furey 2016;World Bank 2017;MacAllister et al 2020). ...
... Data available through the Water Point Data Exchange (Banks and Furey 2016) estimate that on average 78% of water points including a variety of water supply system technologies were functional across 11 countries in Africa (not specifically in drylands). There were high failure rates early after installation; 15% after one year and 25% by their fourth year were non-functional. ...
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... Under this arrangement investment in post-construction maintenance and repairs is usually grossly inadequate, and functionality declines steadily over time (WaterAid, 2011). The overall functionality of a large mixed-age and multi-country sample of water points has been estimated to be around 78% (Banks and Furey, 2016). This implies downtimes (total number of days of no service) of 80 days per year on average. ...
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... Estimating the number of non-functional water points in Sub-Saharan African countries varies from 15 to 50 % at any given time. These values have persisted since the 1970s, despite different improvement plans (Banks and Furey, 2016;Bonsor et al., 2018;Cleaver and Whaley, 2018;Harvey and Reed, 2007;Lockwood and Smits, 2011;Moriarty et al., 2013;Whaley and Cleaver, 2017;Whaley et al., 2019). Here, we consider Sustainability a time-dependent concept that addresses the functionality variations to generate a representative image of the groundwater point. ...
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... Comparing non-functionality estimates may appear simple. However, meaningful comparisons and benchmarking of national estimates across countries cannot feasibly be made (Harvey and Reed, 2006;Banks and Furey, 2016;Bonsor et al., 2018). Foster et al. (2019) note that the information presented is a broad-brush 'best-estimate' rather than a precise computation, and there is actually no sector-wide definition of borehole functionality. ...
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... Secondly, this model has not produced the desired results. For decades, the rural water supply sector has been concerned with alarmingly high rates of nonfunctional waterpoints, which at any one time stands between 15% and 60% (Banks & Furey, 2016;Foster, Furey, Banks, & Willetts, 2020;Harvey & Reed, 2007;Lockwood & Smits, 2011;RWSN, 2010). This issue has been dubbed a 'hidden crisis' (Bonsor et al., 2015). ...
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Safe drinking water is critical to human health and development. In rural sub-Saharan Africa, most improved water sources are boreholes with handpumps; studies suggest that up to one third of these handpumps are non-functional at any given time. This work presents findings from a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from 1509 water sources in 570 communities in the rural Greater Afram Plains (GAP) region of Ghana; one of the largest studies of its kind. 79.4% of enumerated water sources were functional when visited; in multivariable regressions, functionality depended on source age, management, the number of other sources in the community, and the district. A Bayesian network (BN) model developed using the same dataset found strong dependencies of functionality on implementer, pump type, management, and the availability of tools, with synergistic effects from management determinants on functionality, increasing the likelihood of a source being functional from a baseline of 72% to more than 97% with optimal management and available tools. We suggest that functionality may be a dynamic equilibrium between regular breakdowns and repairs, with management a key determinant of repair rate. Management variables may interact synergistically in ways better captured by BN analysis than by logistic regressions. These qualitative findings may prove generalizable beyond the study area, and may offer new approaches to understanding and increasing handpump functionality and safe water access.
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Rural water supply sustainability has remained an enduring policy challenge in sub-Saharan Africa for decades. Drawing on the largest data set assembled on rural water points in sub-Saharan Africa to date, this paper employs logistic regression analyses to identify operational, technical, institutional, financial, and environmental predictors of functionality for over 25 000 community-managed handpumps in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. Risk factors significantly associated with nonfunctionality across all three countries were (a) system age, (b) distance from district/county capital, and (c) absence of user fee collection. In at least one of the three countries, other variables found to have significant multivariable adjusted associations with functionality status included well type, handpump type, funding organization, implementing organization, spare parts proximity, availability of a handpump mechanic, regular servicing, regular water committee meetings, women in key water committee positions, rainfall season, and perceived water quality. While the findings reinforce views that a multifaceted range of conditions is critical for the sustainability of community-managed handpumps, they also demonstrate that these factors remain absent from a high proportion of cases. Governments and development partners must significantly strengthen postconstruction support for operation and maintenance systems, and greater efforts are needed to test and evaluate alternative models for managing handpump water supplies.
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A Decade of WPM. RWSN: Mapping and Monitoring, RWSN
  • Jan 2015
  • J Pearce
  • Greggio E Stephens
Pearce, J, Greggio E., and Stephens E. (2015a). A Decade of WPM. RWSN: Mapping and Monitoring, RWSN.
Handpump Data Selected Countries in Sub
  • Jan 2009
RWSN (2009). Handpump Data 2009. Selected Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland.
Myths of the Rural Water Supply Sector
  • Jan 2010
  • Rwsn Exec
  • Com
RWSN Exec. Com. (2010). Myths of the Rural Water Supply Sector. RWSN Perspective No 4, RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland.
May-day! May-Day! Our handpumps are not working!. RWSN Perspective No 1, Beyond 'functionality' of handpump supplied rural water services in developing countries
  • Jan 2009
  • E Baumann
  • St Rwsn
  • Switzerland Gallen
  • R C Carter
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Baumann, E. (2009). May-day! May-Day! Our handpumps are not working!. RWSN Perspective No 1, RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland Carter, R. C. and Ross, I. (2016) Beyond 'functionality' of handpump supplied rural water services in developing countries. Waterlines DOI: 10.1021/es402086n.
Investment in rural water supply delivers results Briefing note on key findings from the Joint Monitoring Programme 2015 report1 relating to rural water supply
  • Jan 2015
RWSN (2015). Investment in rural water supply delivers results. Briefing note on key findings from the Joint Monitoring Programme 2015 report1 relating to rural water supply. RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland.
Failure and the Future. Water Point Mapping and Monitoring Series
  • Jan 2015
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Pearce, J, Greggio E., and Stephens E.(2015b). Failure and the Future. Water Point Mapping and Monitoring Series, RWSN.
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RWSN (2015). Investment in rural water supply delivers results. Briefing note on key findings from the Joint Monitoring Programme 2015 report1 relating to rural water supply. RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland. RWSN Exec. Com. (2010). Myths of the Rural Water Supply Sector. RWSN Perspective No 4, RWSN, St Gallen, Switzerland. UN (2016). https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg6, (accessed 19.04.2016).