Sharing the recurrent costs of rural water services in four municipalities supported by WaterAid in Mali

Stephen Jones

doi:10.3362/1756-3488.2013.031

Sharing the recurrent costs of rural water services in four municipalities supported by WaterAid in Mali

This paper presents the recurrent costs of rural water services in four local government areas in Mali supported by WaterAid, based on an analysis of data from 2008 to 2011, and examines how these costs are shared between different actors. The actual expenditures observed are also compared with the costs suggested as necessary by national policy and international benchmarks to provide basic sustainable rural water services. Three key lessons are identified. Firstly, operational and minor maintenance and capital maintenance contributions from users are lower than national policy and international benchmarks recommend and should be more closely monitored to understand if users are able and willing to contribute more. Secondly, the definition and responsibility for paying capital maintenance expenditure requires greater clarity. Thirdly, WaterAid and other actors could explore whether the use of municipal WASH Technical Units to support community management could be scaled-up at a lower unit cost by sharing staff and costs across multiple local government areas.

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