Problem overview:

     Stakeholders participation: Community-based organizations comprising of persons from the communities to maintain all water-related activities assist sustainability and achievability of long-term goals. By involving the community in all stages of the project from planning, designing, construction and finally operation and maintenance will help ensure sustainability of the project.

    Training & Educational Initiatives: The provision of education on hygiene to men, women and school children will promote proper sanitation and cleanliness in the communities and ensure lasting results. Training on technical, operational, managerial and financial aspects of the project to relevant persons and institutions will ensure effective operation and management of the project.

Background:

The rural communities of Punjab Province:
Punjab is the largest province in Pakistan and houses 62% of the country’s population. Approximately 50 million residents live in rural settlements. Half of this population must rely on distant sources of unsafe, brackish and polluted groundwater resulting in poor health conditions. Women and children spent much of their day fetching water, depriving girls of schooling and other opportunities and women from other productive or income generating activities. Three quarters of the rural population lack appropriate sanitation facilities and defecates in open areas, resulting in odours and infestations of insects further contributing to poor environmental and health conditions.
Provision of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities: The Government of Pakistan sought to bring safe drinking water and sanitation facilities to the rural communities. The Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering Department of Punjab Province, through the ADB funded Punjab Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project, provided simple, low-cost water supply and drainage facilities to 800,000 people.

Community involvement:
The project utilized a community-based, demand-driven approach where community members were involved in all stages of the project from planning through to construction and finally these community members were to become fully responsible for operation and maintenance (O&M) of the project. Men and women from the communities formed Community based organizations (CBOs) to maintain all water-related activities, promote social development work and livelihood activities, tariff collections, manage micro credit schemes, technical operations and monitoring of results. CBOs were trained on financial, technical, operational and managerial aspects of the project at an early stage.

Stakeholder participation:
As the primary beneficiaries of the project, involvement of women were encouraged at all stages of the project implementation and evaluation. Responsibilities of the community development unit staff and the CBOs are mainly community benefit monitoring and evaluation.

Hygiene education program:
The hygiene education program comprised of 4-day seminars in each village to educate men, women, and school children about proper sanitation and cleanliness. In connection to this program, latrines were sold to the community for about $12 and could be paid for in installments.

Benefits and beneficiaries:
The main beneficiaries from this project are women and children. With appropriate water supply and sanitation facilities, women and children were able to use time saved from fetching water for other productive activities. A survey revealed that women became increasingly involved in income generating activities using the time saved. CBOs established handicraft programs to support women and financial assistants to set up businesses. Women earned income contributing to increased household income of 24%. Monitoring of the project also showed reported cases of water-borne diseases decreased by an impressive 90%, health care costs have reduced and overall health of the communities have improved. School enrollment of children has also increased by 80%, and local environment conditions have improved (decreased odor and insects).