A hidden crisis: strengthening the evidence base on the sustainability of rural groundwater supplies: results from a pilot study in Uganda
2015
Extending and sustaining access to rural water supplies remains central to improving the health and
livelihoods of poor people, particularly women, in Africa, where 400 million rural inhabitants have no
form of utility provided water, and universal access to water hinges on accelerated development of
groundwater (UN 2013). The ‘future proofing’ of groundwater investments is therefore vital,
especially in the context of global and local trends including demographic shifts, environmental
impacts of human activity and climate change (Taylor et al. 2013).
The emphasis, in recent years, on accelerating access to new infrastructure has obscured a hidden
crisis of failure. More than 30% of sources are non‐functional within a few years of construction
(Rietveld et al. 2009, RWSN 2009, Lockwood et al. 2011) and a greater number are seasonal (for
example 50% in Sierra Leone) (MoEWR 2012). The accumulated costs to governments, donors, and,
above all, rural people, are enormous. The original benefits generated by the new infrastructure –
improved health, nutrition, time savings, education, particularly for the poorest – are lost if
improved services cannot be sustained. The cumulative effect of rural water supply failure in Africa
over the past 20 years has been estimated by the World Bank to represent a lost investment in
excess of $1.2 billion.
Critically, there is limited data or analysis on why sources are non‐functional and therefore little
opportunity to learn from past mistakes.
This report provides a summary of the work undertaken by the UK‐funded UPGro research
programme ('Unlocking the Potential for Groundwater for the Poor') for sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA)
funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DfID). The Catalyst Grant project
‘A Hidden Crisis’ was aimed at developing a methodology and toolbox to investigate the causes of
failure in groundwater‐based water services in SSA, which could form the foundation for more
substantial and larger‐scale research in the future to develop a statistically significant evidence base
to examine water point functionality and the underlying causes of failure across a range of physical,
social, institutional and governance environments in SSA. To test the toolbox and methodology
developed, a pilot study was conducted in northeast Uganda
Overall, the approach and methods developed in the catalyst project have been shown to make a
significant step towards developing a replicable and robust methodology which can be used to
generate a systematic evidence base for supply failure. The work has gone a significant way to
encapsulating the complexity of the interlinked aspects of the problem, balancing the natural science
and engineering (“technical”) aspects of the research with those concerning the ability of
communities to manage and maintain their water points (the “social” aspects). The multiplicity of
interlinked causes of water point failure was explicitly acknowledged and taken into account through
the use of multi‐disciplinary field and analytical methods within the toolbox and in selection of the
research team. The multi‐disciplinary methods of investigation used were highly practical and
appropriate to the information sought, and based on detailed observational science.
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