Safe water supply, hygiene, and sanitation promotion

A participatory approach - the case of Korofina Sud
By Kadiatou Aw

Introduction
Safe water provision and the promotion of hygiene and sanitation in Korofina Sud come from WaterAid's initiative to replicate some of the good practices experienced in a similar project in Nafadji.

The choice
Korofina Sud was chosen because the demand for improved services came from the community itself, supported by the Mayor of Commune One. Korofina Sud has about 8000 inhabitants with an average household size of 12. The implementation of the activities was given to a local NGO, AMASBIF, for a three-year period, from April 2003 to March 2006.

The community itself established its development plan for implementation without any assistance from external facilitators. The community successfully worked on a subsidy system to build household waste pits.

The aim and objectives
The aim of this project is to find a solution to the community's liquid waste disposal problems.

The objectives are:

• To provide 50% subsidies to households to enable them to construct household liquid waste pits
• To support the physical construction of the pits based on the willingness on the part of the prospective beneficiaries to pay their 50% contribution
• To educate the community on a future 100% cost bearing of the facility
  

Strategy
Under an agreement between the community and AMASBIF, waste pits would be constructed with a community contribution of 50% to the total cost. AMASBIF provides the remaining 50% as a subsidy to each household. No repayment or interest is collected from beneficiaries. Field staff of AMASBIF provide technical assistance in the construction of the pits. Beneficiaries pay their contributions in affordable instalments over a period of six months and the money collected from the monthly payments is used to subsidize other households.

Response rate
The response has been encouraging. According to the Project Coordinator of AMASBIF, about 24 applications were received between April and August 2004. While this figure might sound small given the size of the community and the amount of sensitisation that has gone down so far, AMASBIF believes it is rather encouraging. The scheme is still quite new with much more work planned in the future.

Sustainability
The major fear surrounding the scheme is that the more they build waste pits and latrines, the more the revolving fund diminishes, because there is a 50% subsidy that the AMASBIF project pays. This means that at some point there will be no fund available to continue the process. But AMASBIF thinks that before they reach this level, community members will be aware of the usefulness of the process and this will facilitate the sustainability of the procedure with their own funds.

To prevent lack of funding in the future, the project has come up with a three phase strategy:

• Phase one - community cash contribution of 50% to total cost
• Phase two - community providing labour and the project providing all materials
• Phase three - community bearing all the expenses

Throughout all these phases, there will be intensified sensitisation, when successes from the first phase will be used to help entice others to replicate the process.

A similar self-help initiative
People in Korofina Sud have a revolving credit system to aid with the acquisition of buckets with lids, similar to that of Nafadji. But the difference lies in the fact that there is no subsidy for the buckets, so women have to pay the credit in full. Sometimes, they even pay more to help with the salary of the water point management committee. They add a little amount to the price of the buckets, which will be given to the animator in charge of hygiene and sanitation management committee, and all other activities related to water and sanitation management.

This committee has self-sufficiency oriented actions, which consist of identifying and prioritising demands according to established criteria. The committee also manages implementation contracts with masons and credit contracts with beneficiaries by written engagements.

Remarks
Giving responsibility to the actors at different levels contributes to the sustainability of projects. The strategy aims at improving the participatory approach with partnership interactions rather than an assistance relationship. It raises a level of confidence within the community and much more professionalism in monitoring activities.

In the Korofina Sud case, the people are always made to make commitments so that they would not become, or be seen to be, over-relying on development agencies. This may, however, not apply in every community. This purely depends on the community's income levels and their ability to contribute.