Hydraulic ram pumps and Sling Pumps

Key Factors for Sustainable Cost RecoveryAdvantages and disadvantages of community workshopsAdvantagesDisadvantages• An easy and fast method to obtain• More difficult to carry out in large communitieshousehold’s WTP• Household opinions can be influenced by community• Does not require complex techniques andleadersprograms• Difficult for women to participate in decision making• Considers broadly household opinionsprocess or their participation can be highly influenced• Can be carried out by the community itself by men• Responses do not give any information about reasonwhy households decide to pay or not1.4 Setting an adequate institutional framework1.4.1 Management and cost recoveryAppropriate management capacity and skills are required to run a service efficiently, especially thoseskills related to budgets, organising bills, collection, recording expenses and revenue, monitoring, andapplying sanctions. An assessment of the management capacity of the community is therefore crucial.If capacity building activities are too complex to organise for a given technology, it might benecessary to consider another technology that requires fewer management skills. The managementstructure will influence the way that cost recovery is going to be organised, as described in table 4.These options show the implications that each type of community management structure has on theorganisation of cost recovery. In order to contribute to efficiency, planners and communities will haveto determine which management structure is the most appropriate considering the choice oftechnology and the capacity of the community.1.4.2 Partnership and cost recoveryAlthough the tendency today is to promote full cost recovery at community level, it is a fact that tariffsalone are usually not sufficient to cover all costs. Given this situation, there is a need to define clearlythe financial responsibilities of each of the actors involved: the community, the national government,the local authority, NGOs, donor-supported projects, and possibly others such as churches, individualsor the private sector. Partnership and cost-sharing arrangements can be sought.The role of various actors in financing is closely related to their managerial and operational/technicalresponsibilities. The more complex the technology, the more communities depend on partnershipswith other main stakeholders, while the Government or local authorities retain the job of defining asubsidy and pricing policy. The financial arrangements of cost sharing require all the various bodies todefine their responsibilities precisely, and to seal these in an agreement or a contract.Financial arrangements can be quite different depending on whether we are dealing with new schemesor with existing schemes. For new schemes, responsibilities can be discussed right from the beginningand be a pre-condition for the project. One should however realise that agreements and contracts arenot always sufficient to guarantee that financial arrangements will be respected. Indeed, the legalstatus of communities needs to be specified so that communities can fight for their rights and beempowered. Even in these circumstances, administrative and jurisdictional procedures might be tooexpensive, cumbersome and time consuming for communities. In addition to agreements, communitiesalso need to be able to turn for help to a department accredited to defend them.For existing schemes, responsibilities can evolve over time. The task of dividing financial, managerialand operational responsibilities among government agencies, local authorities and communities forexisting systems can be cumbersome. Demand responsive processes whereby communities have a sayin the selection of technology are not relevant in these cases, as the technology exists already. Forexample, in order to overcome this problem, the Government of Namibia has chosen to transferresponsibilities gradually through in three phases over a period of seven to ten years, as follows: 1.Capacity-building; 2. Operation and maintenance; 3. Full-cost recovery (Table 5).21