Sustainability of a Water Supply System: The Case of Hai Water Project in Tanzania

Abstract

In the developing countries, self-sustaining water supply projects have become critical for the long-term development and well-being of the people. To ensure sustainability, equity, billing collection, cost recovery and beneficiary participation are emphasized. This paper investigates a small rural/urban water supply project in Tanzania in terms of the above attributes and evaluate its potential for further improvement. Equity in public tap distribution is analysed using the Theil information theoretic measure while the performance in monthly water bills collection is evaluated using the Theil forecast error method. The results show that public taps are unevenly distributed among beneficiaries. The performance in bills collections is better for public taps than for house connections and, overall, townships' performance is better than that of villages. Though the project as a whole recovers 127.4% of its operations and maintenance costs from billings, it has a high potential for further improvement.