Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's water and sanitation coverage significantly declined in the last decade as a result of inadequate financial resources, socio-economic challenges, weakened institutions and deteriorating standards of essential services offered by local government. Once leading in both water and sanitation coverage in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe saw a drastic decrease in the gains of the 1980s. This video showcases the experiences of the ZIMWASH project working in six districts namely Chipinge, Chegutu, Hwange, Bulilima, and Mangwe in the semi-arids regions of Zimbabwe.
This short video is about the Elephant Pump from PumpAid. These pumps are being constructed together with community. Because they are involved in the construction, there is a strong sense of ownership. It is a very simple technology, everyone can be thought how to maintain it, says Amos Chitungo, PumpAid Programme Manager in Zimbabwe.
This guideline has been developed for MUS projects in Zimbabwe. It aims to help addressing water for livelihoods in a structured way in different steps of the project cycle. It is geared towards district level staff, who work on the provision of water supply to rural communities.It provides tools and methods which can be used as complement to existing guidelines for WASH project, to specifically include livelihoods. This guide consists of three parts:
Part 1: conceptual framework. This part aims to define key concepts in relation to water and livelidhoods
Part 2: addressing water and livelihoods in the project cycle.
Part 3: tools and methods. This part provides tools and methods that can be used in the planning process
Fungai Makoni (IWSD) presented guidelines for planning water for livelihoods in Zimbabwe.
This paper explores the links between multiple use services and self supply approaches, exploring selected cases in Nicaragua and Zimbabwe. The first case illustrates the influence multiple uses have had on the wide uptake and sustainability of rope pumps in Nicaragua. The main reason cited for these is linked to the economic opportunities that have arisen from the development of irrigation and the availability of water for livestock. The second presents the case of family wells in Zimbabwe, where household owned wells are commonly used to serve multiple purposes. The paper finally explores opportunities and challenges of MUS through self supply, such as water quality issues, reaching the poorest and its scalability.
Water with all its multiple uses plays a pivotal role in the sustenance of rural livelihoods, especially the poor. As such, the provision of water which go beyond domestic to include water for small-scale productive uses should be encouraged to enhance peoples’ livelihood options by making significant contribution to household income, food security, improved nutrition and health. All these multiple benefits, if combined can assist in the fight against hunger and poverty.
This study was conducted in Mashonaland East province, covering Marondera, Murehwa and Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe districts in Zimbabwe for the period December 2005 to May 2006 to assess factors which affect multiple uses of water and their impact on the sustainability of rural water supply sources. Participatory Rural Appraisal tools such as discussions, observations and interviews were used for data collection. The survey found that people indeed require water for productive purposes apart from domestic uses, which are often given top priority. The study found out that multiple uses of water at household level can be affected by segmentation of water services into "domestic" and "productive" water supply schemes, technology and system design, water quality and quantity and distance to water sources among other factors.
The study recommends that water service providers to be able to provide appropriate, efficient and sustainable services, they should understand and appreciate the livelihood needs and priorities of the communities they serve. This calls for the need for harmonization and coordination of water service providers to best respond to communities’ multiple water demands.
The need for so-called multiple uses services has been made clear over the past years through an increasing body of literature, including from the Southern Africa region. In order to be able to follow a MUS approach at community level, an enabling environment of policies and institutions is needed both at intermediate and national level. Key elements of such an environment include policies which enable and promotevmultiple uses, coordination between sectors and levels and integrated financing streams. This report has tried to analyse that environment at national level in Zimbabwe.
Policies for water resources management are enabling a multiple use approach, though not actively promoting it. However, this opportunity hasn’t been seized by the domestic water supply or irrigation sector in the form of clear policies or guidelines on the development of water services for multiple purposes. In fact, a limited focus on
health only and rigid technology standards have in the past even limited the scope for multiple use services. Yet, within the same policy framework, NGOs have been able to innovate and develop broader livelihoods-based approaches and more appropriate technologies. At national level, coordination and especially sharing of lessons between NGOs holds the possibility to scale up the approach to other NGO programmes, and even government policies. Brining the approach down to district level will be more difficult, with coordination mechanisms at that level having collapsed or being inactive.
Water with all its multiple uses plays a pivotal role in the sustenance of rural people, especially the poor. As such, the provision of water which go beyond domestic to include water for productive uses can enhance peoples’ livelihood options by making significant contribution to household income, food security, improved nutrition and health. All these multiple benefits, if combined can assist in the fight against hunger and poverty. This study was conducted in Mashonaland East province, covering Marondera, Murehwa and Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe districts in Zimbabwe for the period December 2005 to May 2006 to assess factors which affect multiple uses of water and their impact on the sustainability of rural water supply sources. Methodology for participatory assessment was used for data collection. The survey found that people indeed require water for productive purposes apart from domestic uses, which are often given top priority. The study found out that multiple uses of water at household level can be affected by segmentation of water services into domestic and productive water supply schemes, technology and system design, water quality and quantity and distance to water sources among other factors. The study recommends that water providers to be able to provide appropriate, efficient and sustainable services, they should understand and appreciate the livelihood needs and priorities of the communities they serve. This calls for the need for harmonization and coordination of water service providers to best respond to communities’ multiple water demands.
The need for an approach to water supply which aims to cover for both people’s domestic and productive water (the multiple use services, mus, approach) needs has gained recognition over the last few years in Zimbabwe. A range of organisations, especially NGOs are pioneering such approach in their programmes and projects.
In following such a mus approach, these organisations have started to use a range of technologies which enable multiple uses in different degrees. These range from household-based options such as family wells and rainwater harvesting devices to community-based boreholes with bush pumps; and, from drip irrigation kits to associated head works for cattle watering and laundry. These technologies differ in their functioning, their costs and especially their implications for water use.
This paper attempts to systematically document these different technologies. It does so by first providing a typology of the technologies that are being used. This typology is based upon whether technologies are typical household solutions, or communal ones. A further distinction is made along the chain of water sources, extracting and lifting devices, and then distribution devices. Each of the technologies is described in detail, especially in terms of its implications for multiple use of water.
It shows that there is not one single “best” technology for multiple uses. The household-based family wells are more expensive (in per capita costs) than the conventional boreholes with bush pumps, but allow for much higher consumption levels, which can be turned into productive use. This doesn’t mean that family wells can now spread all over the country, as they can only be applied in areas with shallow groundwater. Other technologies such as rainwater harvesting and farm ponds are complementary technology to the family wells or bush pumps, as they cannot guarantee year-round water supply. Finally, a number of technologies can be applied to save water, and reduce labour requirements in putting available water to use, ranging from cattle troughs to drip kits. To what extent these are feasible, depends mainly on the availability of water. When it is easily and readily available, the need for such technologies is less than when more effort is needed to collect water.
The concept of multiple use services has been developed in response to the often limited approach to water services development, which doesn’t include water for livelihoods activities, such as gardening or livestock. Zimbabwe is rich in experience with the implementation of water services for multiple purposes, especially those promoted by NGOs. However, learning and sharing about the experiences about this approach was deficient, limiting the effective and efficient scaling up of the experiences. A so-called Learning Alliance (LA) approach was proposed to overcome these limitations.
This report describes how the LA concepts were applied in the MUS project in Zimbabwe, and also assess the experiences with the approach, describing the process followed, and analysis of the experiences and impacts of the approach.
Initially, the LA was conceptualised as a separate group or network of organisations, which would come together on a regular basis to share experiences. Besides, support to activities at decentralised levels was planned. The LA would be a separate group under the WES-WG meeting, the existing coordination body in the water sector.
The different plans developed worked out completely different from what was envisaged. One of the reasons was that it proved impossible to find members willing to make time available for these specific meetings outside the regular WES-WG meetings. At the same time, the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the WES-WG were slightly expanded from being a purely operational coordination body to one in which learning and sharing were more predominant. That made the need for a separate group working on multiple uses partially redundant. In fact, many issues of multiple uses were included into other activities of the WES-WG, such as the standardisation of terminology for technologies and the guidelines for Community Based Management. It must also be recognised that in the country there was already a lot of critical mass around multiple uses. There wasn’t a need to advocate for it, but rather allow the sharing of practical experiences with it.
Developing the link with the district levels proved difficult within the limited resources of the MUS project only. Members of the WES-WG do share lessons with their decentralised offices, but only to a limited way. In the current context, with very limited funds, it will remain difficult to have an effective learning platform at decentralised level, as there is hardly any space to put lessons learnt into practice.