CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue on

Trends and Developments in Rural Water Supply Services Delivery

With the financial support of International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC)

Guest Editors:
Stef Smits (IRC)
John Butterworth (IRC)
Richard Franceys (Cranfield University)

Since the turn of Millennium and its trumpeted development goals we’ve seen much progress in extending access to rural water supplies. According to the UN’s Joint Monitoring Program, the water goal has now been achieved, 5 years before the 2015 target date. But over the same period, the challenges of providing sustainable rural water supply services have become more and more apparent. An estimated 30-40% of rural handpumps in Sub-Saharan Africa are not functional at any given moment. Similar percentages of rural water supply systems in Asia and Latin America are performing well below the expected design criteria. The reasons for failure and under-performance are manifold and summarised in the 10 myths of rural water supply (RWSN, 2009). These all point to the limitations of community-based management as the dominant approach in rural water supply, and the inadequate ways in which rural water supply systems are financed and supported.

Recognition of this ‘sustainability crisis’ is resulting in changes to the main underpinning concepts and paradigms for rural water supply. Central to most solutions is the adoption of a service delivery approach, in which rural water is seen as a service to be provided, rather than a system that needs to be put in place. The adoption of a service delivery approach will have profound implications for the ways in which the sector is organised. It means for example, setting and monitoring service level targets rather than just coverage targets. Realising that community management alone is often insufficient to provide services that last and all the services that people want, direct support to community-based service providers is needed, and in some case complementary management models, such as self-supply and small private operators have a high potential to improve services. A service delivery approach benefits from the adoption of a services costing approach towards the financing of rural water supplies.

Various countries have started addressing these challenges and making the shift towards a more service-oriented approach, implementing some of the measures mentioned above. However, marked differences are seen in the speed and way this shift is made. The political economy of rural water supply seems to be playing an important role.

Water Alternatives will publish a special issue on trends and developments in rural water supply services delivery, highlighting challenges and changes to the hitherto mainstream approaches to rural water supply. In addition, the special issue will seek to create a better understanding how political economy influences changes in rural water supply. We invite papers that could be published as part of this special issue. Specifically, we seek both papers which provide a theoretical background to the changing approaches towards rural water supply and papers based on empirical study of service-delivery focused approaches. Topics on which we would expect papers would include, amongst others:

• Service delivery approaches for rural water supply. Papers on this topic could provide a clear conceptual framework to service delivery approaches, examine critically how the approach and the concept have developed, and differ, from past approaches, in the wider debate about available approaches to rural water supply.
• Political economy of rural water supply. Papers on this topic should address the question on how the political economy shapes the development of the rural water supply sub-sector, and its reform processes. Given the high aid-dependency of the sub-sector in many countries, specific emphasis should be given on the role of aid on the political economy of rural water supplies.
• Human right to water. The recognition of the human right to water is giving a new impetus to policy discussions on rural water supplies.
• Historical perspectives on rural water supplies in developed countries. The focus in this special issue is on rural water supply in countries that still need to extend coverage. But papers that describe the historical development of rural water supply in the developed world, with insights for elsewhere, are also welcomed. Those should particularly address how, and at what level of national wealth, developed countries have addressed issues of financial sustainability of rural water supplies.
• Costing and financing of services. Papers are requested that describe how services/life-cycle costing approaches are applied and the implications of the findings of such work for financing arrangements, in view of long-term affordability of services.
• Monitoring and support to service delivery. This refers to institutional arrangements for on-going monitoring and support to rural service providers. Particularly, we would seek papers that describe the costs and impacts of such mechanisms in terms of changes in sustainability.
• What are the business strategies of different informal providers and what is the nature of the relationship of informal operators with their customers and how does this relationship influence service provision?

Timeline

• Water policy at global and national levels
• Launch of the call by May 15, 2012
• Submission of abstracts by July 15, 2012
• Notification of authors by August 30, 2012
• Draft papers by December 31, 2013
• Reviews by April 1st
• Final version by July 31
• Publication by October 2013

Contact the guest-editors

Stef Smits, IRC , smits@irc.nl
John Butterworth, IRC, butterworth@irc.nl
Richard Franceys, Cranfield University, r.w.a.franceys@cranfield.ac.uk

or send your abstract to: managing_editor@water-alternatives.org