Rural wells in Zimbabwe

Updated - Thursday 15 January 2004

Zimbabwe initiated decentralized water supply and sanitation systems in the 1980s, at the time of independence. At the outset, the country adopted a supply-side approach, initiating a programme to provide 100% coverage of water supply and sanitation throughout the country by 2005. The programme achieved some success, installing 5,000 wells in the first two years in communities around the country. Since the mid 1990s, however, the national government (through the Ministry of Health) has taken a back seat role in rural water supply and sanitation, leaving control with external support agencies (ESAs) and the users themselves.

This shift in policy thinking was largely influenced by the economic decline that the country (and the people) faced throughout the 1980s. It resulted in the government being unable to pay for the rural water and sanitation programme, even with substantial support from international support agencies and aid, such as WaterAid, SIDA, DfID, and UNICEF. With the economic decline, the government adopted a strategy of decentralized government services - although it was unable to provide capacity building and funding to help the newly responsible community-level organizations to adapt.

Implementing targets and designs for cost recovery was discussed throughout the 1990s in Zimbabwe to address the obstacles to achieving more sustainable results in the water and sanitation sector. The principle of community-based management was agreed by all, but use of cost-recovery principles had no political backing at the national level.

Consequently, rural people were left to gain access to water and sanitation themselves, and they worked with local non-government agencies to finance low-cost solutions. Generally, the rural areas adopted programmes that provided water at the household level, as this strategy had already been adopted with success for sanitation. By 1998, the strategy for using the household as the lowest organizational level for rural water supply was adopted by the country at large.

WaterAid initiated a substantial programme in Zimbabwe in 1993, which developed into the Mvuramanzi Trust. With strong support from the international development community, the Trust has helped over half a million people either improve their wells or gain access to water and sanitation by 2002, using the Upgraded Family Well, or UFW.

The Mvuramanzi Trust uses cost recovery principles, in that the Trust provides a seed grant of 30% to construct the well, while the households pay 70%. Because the household directly receives the health, time, energy, and other benefits from having the well, most wells are maintained properly without any funding from the government. The UFW's per capita cost is about one-tenth the cost of drilling a borehole and attaching a handpump. With its focus of providing service at the household level, some of the institutional and capacity constraints to cost recovery have been avoided.

Further, as the people pay such a high percentage of the initial capital costs, the seed funding is available to a greater number of communities.

The UFW has many advantages. Maintenance is minimal, and structural repairs are required only occasionally. The basic UFW siphons off spillage into a small plot, which, when used for household use, can irrigate a small plot of land. For an additional cost, UFWs may also be fitted with a pump, which can increase the irrigation size up to eight times. Within Zimbabwe, the UFW has become very widely accepted, and catches on quickly once one or two households purchase one. Households generally are willing to pay up to 80% of the capital cost in addition to the cost of maintenance.

Some of the benefits of having a well at the household level include: more time and energy for women to pursue other activities beyond fetching water; an increased intake of water per household, which yields positive health benefits; and the ability for households to irrigate small plots of land for personal or productive use. Also, by operating at the household level, issues such as ownership of the water and decision making over its use are reduced.

Still, the goal for 100% access remains distant and the UFW has some problems. Firstly, the UFWs are shallow wells rather than more expensive community boreholes, and so are susceptible to drying up during times of drought. And, while the UFW promotes a more holistic approach to water supply at the household level, the basic UFW often does not provide enough water to be put to productive, income-generating use for the poorest of the poor, who may not be able to afford an additional pump. (There are other financial constraints for the poor, even if a pump is affordable, including high prices for seed and fertilizer, ability to market and distribute products, and so forth.)

It should also be noted that concerns have been expressed about the programme, in that the Trust provides funding on a first-come, first served basis, which may inhibit the poorest of the poor from signing on, as they may lack the initial 70% of total costs. Still, the ongoing success of expanding UFWs throughout the country provides a starting point to meeting the water and sanitation needs of the people, and in providing a point of access for income-generating activities for families.

The UFWs have shown resilience to the economic and political hardships facing Zimbabwe in recent years. With an unemployment rate exceeding 50%, self reliance for sustenance and basic livelihoods has become increasingly important. Without seed corn grants from external support agencies, the rural water supply and sanitation programmes in Zimbabwe would not have made as much progress as they did; as a result of high cost recovery expectations, the seed corn approach was able to impact positively a greater number of Zimbabwe's rural population.

For further information

See: WSP

Contact: Water and Sanitation Programme-Africa Region

Upper Hill, PO Box 30577

Nairobi, Kenya

Tel: +254 (2) 260300, 260400

Fax: +254 (2) 260386

Email: wspaf@worldbank.org