table of contents preamble 1. summary - ACT - Advanced ...

8. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMANDATIONS
8.1. CONCLUSIONS
Identification and preparation of the project
- The project is a continuation of a limited action set up by SOCADIDO in the period
between ’92 and ’95 financed by Cebemo/Bilance. The mistakes of this first experimental
phase were simply passed on at the start of the CMWS project : inadequate technicality at
the spring protections, no approach concerning the community mobilisation and no clear
strategy yet concerning the linkage between water, sanitation, hygiene and health.
- About three years passed between the first formulation of the project and the actual start.
This was due on the one hand to the limited capacities within SOCADIDO and on the
other hand to the defective communication between SOCADIDO and its financing partner
Cebemo/Bilance.
- At the formulation of the project proposal there was little participation from SOCADIDO
where at that time no one was enough specialised in the sector to contribute to the
conception of the project, which had thus been confided to externals.
Relevance
- The project is indeed relevant and responds to primary needs of the target group. The
faulty drinking water supply in the area was also aggravated during the unstable period till
‘92-’93. Better hygiene and sanitation is at first not perceived by the target group as a
priority, but once the link between water, sanitation, hygiene and health has been better
understood the beneficiaries are strongly interested.
- The coverage in the target area related to drinking water is about 40% and about 20% for
the latrines. With a limited number of other actors investing in the sector there is certainly
room for the CMWS programme of SOCADIDO. Besides the project applies itself to
techniques that are less promoted by the other actors (spring protections and hand-augured
wells), thus resulting in a good complementarity.
- The project subscribes to the national and regional strategy in relation to drinking water
and sanitation. In the starting phase though a number of hand pumps were used which did
not comply with the strategy of regional uniformisation. It is also possible to strive for a
better collaboration with the government services and with the WATSAN committees at
the level of the subcounties and the counties.
Effectiveness
- On the quantitative level the project has not realised its proposed objectives. At the most
half of the number of proposed water points will be finished by the end of the project. This
is partly due to the inexperience of the team (which was completely new and engaged
beginning of ’97), partly to a wrong estimate of cost prices and execution delays during
the formulation, and partly to the – certainly justified – priority the team wishes to give to
quality, to building their own capacities and to the development of an adapted approach.
- The quality of the installed water points has greatly improved since the backstopping
mission of May ’98. Before the spring protections were of a bad quality giving unclear
water, which also had a negative influence on the sustainability of the construction. The
boreholes were often situated too close to the swamps so there was an infiltration of
38