Community score card helps Bombo community improve their water service

Published on: 19/07/2012

The Bombo community together with the private water service provider and the Town Council developed a joint action plan towards improving water services in Bombo Town Council. The action plan shared roles and responsibilities to water service providers, town council officials, water board members, community leaders and community members. These roles are assigned to work towards ensuring that every community has access to improved and adequate potable water. The action plan was developed in an interface meeting of the community and service providers during the community score card exercise carried out by NETWAS Uganda in Bombo Town Council, a small town; 25 kilometres north of Kampala - the capital of Uganda.

A community member reads out to participants at the interface meeting how to score the service providers, copyright Basilia Nanbigne 2012

The community score card is a participatory process in collecting feedback from service users through focus group discussions. The CSC generates user satisfaction by allowing users to score service providers on their performance in service delivery. It also allows the service provider to score itself on its performance. A platform is created where the two parties meet and share results. This platform allows users to register their complaints and other concerns and service providers to share their challenges with the users. The meeting between the service provider and community (inter-phase) is also used to make suggestions, resolutions and joint action plans among others geared at improving the service.

The Good Governance Project

NETWAS Uganda carried out the community score card exercise as part of the good governance project which is currently being implemented in Bombo Town Council. The good governance project is a two and a half years project with support from DANIDA. It is aimed at “Improving Governance in urban and rural Water Service Delivery through capacity building and use of a Community Score Card” in Bombo Town Council in Uganda. The purpose of the project is to improve the quality of water services through improving governance.

The objectives of the community score card programme is to initiate a process where the community and water providers work jointly to improve water services, management, communication, transparency and socio accountability in Bombo Town Council.

Bombo Town Council is one of the small Towns in Uganda where there is poor access to improved water services. Able Holdings is a private operator with a management contract to supply water in Bombo Town Council. However, of the 3232 households in Bombo, Abel Holding has only 645 households connected to tap water, 5 yard taps and 2 kiosks.  These connections are mostly found in selected part of the urban areas of Bombo Town Council. The rest of the community depends on a few boreholes with majority depending on unprotected springs.

 

Issues from the community score card exercise

The community score card exercise helped the community to come up with a number of concerns related to water services which includes the following key issues:

• Poor communication from service providers in terms of billings, connection /disconnections and information about water services including opportunities.
• Poor maintenance of water sources by the water operators and user committees/care takers.
• Lack of transparency and accountability by service providers. Most care takers and water user committees did not account to the community. Some community members who use tap water did not also receive receipts for payment of water bills.
• Inadequate water sources available for communities.

Community Action Plan

During the interface meeting, the water service providers, town council officials and the water users from different water sources i.e. taps, boreholes and springs came up with roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder in water services. A six-month action plan was drawn by participants to address their concerns. Responsibilities were assigned to community members, the service providers and the town council officials. These action plans and actors included the following:

• Town council and community members to contribute money and repair / rehabilitate boreholes and springs;
• the  private water operator to replace broken pipe lines to ensure reconnection of people to tap water;
• the Town council and water operator to share with community members;  information regarding issues of water (such as opportunity for tap connections, billings connection fees) through the radio;
• the Town council officials and water operator to share water budget lines for Bombo town council with community members ;
• the water user committees should account regularly to community members for the fees water users pay by displaying the amount received on notice boards or through community meetings;
• the private operator should ensure that water users acquire receipts for the bills and other water fees charged;
• the private operator should sensitize the community on water meter reading and billing;
• community leaders should ensure that water user committees are formed in communities where they do not exist;
• community members should pay their bills and water user fees promptly.

The Bombo Community will meet after six months to review their action plan and re-plan for another six months.

Article by Basilia Nanbigne from CONIWAS in Ghana,  who spent nine months working for NETWAS Uganda, as part of IRC's Southern Youth Zone Programme (2011-2012).