Paying the piper : an overview of community financing of water and sanitation

This document gives an overview of a number of key issues relating to community financing, cost recovery, and sustainability, which may help programme managers, planners, and policy makers, in overcoming the problem of previous water supply and sanitation projects which failed to address the issue of covering costs adequately. Community financing, through user payment for services, has been seen as one way of dealing with this problem. A summary is given of the arguments in favour of greater cost recovery from users, and these are contrasted with the practical problems of achieving this goal. The document also includes a discussion on practical methods of revenue raising, including the possible roles which could be played by the communities themselves and by the private sector in managing cost recovery. An important theme noted from the literature is the change in the role of communities in the light of community payment, from being beneficiaries to being partners in the development process. This it is anticipated will have repercussions for the future relationships between agencies and communities.