Toward a Sustainable Approach to Water Service Delivery Methods in a Rural Context
Abstract
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over two billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services, accounting for over one million deaths worldwide each year. To focus needed attention on this crisis, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals call for universal, equitable, safe, and affordable water service. This global challenge has proved to be particularly difficult in a rural context. Governments in developing regions often lack the resources, capital, and capabilities to provide and manage public services, to include drinking water. Many have turned to the private sector, foreign donors, and aid organizations to supply safe water. Historically, these programs have struggled to do so sustainably, over-prioritizing short-term infrastructure development at the expense of the long-term operation of the systems. Many water providers and their donors have focused on the number of facilities built and the number of people with access, driving the performance of the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sector by these metrics alone. Sustainability; however, cannot be described by system functionality or population coverage exclusively. The definition of the term should be expanded to include a wider variety of metrics that describe the long term operation and resiliency of the system, from the perspective of both the water suppliers and the communities they serve. A more nuanced view of sustainability is especially needed in rural communities where weak governance, low per capita resources, and high per capita costs of obtaining water access combine to present a substantial barrier to water service delivery.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 20, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1073963
Entities
People
- Kathryn S. Wesdyk
Organizations
- United States Naval Academy