Meeting need and achieving sustainability in water project interventions

Meg Huby and Stuart Stevenson
Additional contact information
Meg Huby: Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, UK, meh1@york.ac.uk
Stuart Stevenson: Norconsult, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Progress in Development Studies, 2003, vol. 3, issue 3, 196-209

Abstract: This paper reviews common reasons postulated for the failure of many externally funded projects to improve the water supplies of people in poor rural areas of developing countries. Analysis of survey data from Tanzania shows that villages most in need of water supply improvements are unlikely to benefit from short-term interventions based on ‘dig-install-depart’ models. Excess availability and low value placed on labour in poor village communities reduce the chances that necessary effort and resources will be deployed to maintain water schemes following the withdrawal of funding agencies. The paper concludes that, to reduce poverty, interventions must be accompanied by broader packages of prolonged support, enabling communities to develop the skills and obtain the means to maintain improvements in the long term.

Keywords: intervention; labour; need; poverty; sustainability; water (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1191/1464993403ps061oa (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:prodev:v:3:y:2003:i:3:p:196-209

DOI: 10.1191/1464993403ps061oa

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Progress in Development Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().