Failures of water supply and sanitation systems

Failures of water supply and sanitation systems describe situations where water supply and sanitation systems (also called WASH systems) have been put in place (for example by the government or by non-government organizations (NGOs) but have failed to meet the expected outcomes. Low resource settings are scattered with the artifacts of WASH projects - include tanks, taps, toilets and pipes - from the period when WASH was predominantly considered a problem of infrastructure, engineering and technology. These failures not only represent a massive loss of investment of donor and community members’ resources, their creation persists, with non-functionality of water systems remaining at 30%–40%.

This level of failure represents a total investment of between USD 1.2 and USD 1.5 billion in the last 20 years (as of 2010).

These failures often due to poor planning, lack of choice of appropriate technology depending upon the context, insufficient stakeholder involvement at the various stages of the project, and/or lack of maintenance. Some argue they are due in part to a lack of accountability for these failures.

While Hygiene Behavior Change is important in achieving the health benefits of improved WASH systems, the achievement of sustainability of WASH infrastructure depends on the creation of demand for sanitation services.

National government mapping and monitoring efforts as well as post-project monitoring by NGOs or researchers, have identified the failure of water supply systems (also known as water points, wells, boreholes, or similar) and sanitation systems (one part of sanitation systems are the toilets). The following sections provide examples of those failures sorted by country.