Client: BESIK, the Australian aid-funded initiative addressing rural water supply and sanitation in Timor-Leste
In many countries, communities themselves manage rural water services. As documented worldwide community models for water supply often fail due to systemic challenges such as a lack of financial planning, and a struggle to get spare parts, collect fees, retain water system operators, support functioning water committees, and monitor these different dimensions.
Timor-Leste experiences these same challenges, and so ISF looked at why so many community-managed systems are not functional just a year or two after installation.
Could new thinking inform a better governance and management approach?
ISF’s research suggested ideas and options to tackle these problems by focusing on capacity building and long-term sustainability. This would require a reorientation of the sector from an infrastructure focus to a ‘service delivery approach’.
Such an approach would help clarify the range of governance and management models that could improve rural water supply, including variations of community management – such as formalising committees – government outsourcing specific roles, and greater clarity on government roles in asset management and monitoring.
ISF’s final recommendations for the National Directorate for Water Services (DNSA), BESIK and other stakeholders suggested how Timor-Leste could learn from and implement relevant models that had proven successful in other parts of the world.
A service delivery approach for rural water supply in Timor-Leste: Institutional options and strategy (PDF, 1.5MB)