Pilot study of community management of water supply and sanitation schemes : Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project, Lumbini Zone, Nepal

The Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project in Lumbini Zone, Nepal, has carried out community based development projects with nearly 300 Water User Committees (WUCs) during the period from 1990-1995. The Project has developed and used a "step-by-step" approach to ensure villagers' involvement in their project from the feasibility studies to design and implementation, and to strengthen users' ownership feeling and commitment to take care of the scheme This pilot study, made in July 1995, is the first attempt to collect systematic information on the community management of the scheme: to find out how the WUCs function, what their management skills are, and how they have tackled their problems. The study was made by interviewing WUC members, Village Maintenance Workers, female Community Health Volunteers and other villagers, and covered 23 WUCs in 15 gravity schemes in the Hills and 8 groundwater schemes in the Terai. This report is a summary of the findings of the study. The main findings of the study are presented for each issue area, followed by recommendations directly drawn from the results. At the end of the report, general conclusions are presented and all recommendations are summarized. In the last chapter, some suggestions for future research on WUCs are made. Annexed are a list of the schemes studied, a map of the study area, a summary of questionnaires and field reports of the scheme visits which should be of interest to people involved in particular schemes. This pilot study is the prelude to a more comprehensive survey of all WUCs to be carried out at the beginning of Phase II of the Project.