FACED with the likelihood that it will not be able to provide safe running water for all Jamaicans by the 2005 deadline which it had set itself, government is pushing for greater community and private sector involvement in the effort and at the same time urging rural Jamaicans to modify their expectations for water access.

In a new Water Sector Policy document which is now being debated, government and parish councils are urged to encourage community participation in the operation and management of community water supply systems such as catchment tanks.

The policy is still at the consultative stage and was discussed at a recent symposium in Kingston.

“I was a little sceptical … but now I am convinced that the community must play a greater role in the configuration of the system that they will benefit from,” chief technical director at the Ministry of Water and Housing, Donovan Stanbury, told participants at the symposium.

Stanbury argued that unless communities were integrally involved in water provision then they would not take as much care to see that it worked well.

“We cannot achieve our mandate unless the people of this country are made aware of the costs associated with water supply … they must know the full implications in terms of tariffs and what will happen if they do not pay their rates,” Stanbury said.

Already, the government has started a pilot project funded by the International Development Bank (IDB), to test the community involvement approach.

“We have taken the initiative on a pilot basis with the rural water programme funded by the IDB … this programme is community driven and we are looking at all the alternatives to providing water supply or the alternative sources and methods at the least costs,” the chief technical director said.

“The community contributes a certain percentage to show commitment as obtained in this Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) project and they will have a stake in how the system are managed,” he continued.

He argued that while there might be much doubt about the communities’ ability to manage their water supply systems, they must at least be given a chance.

“We are talking about low-cost, simple water systems and we must try to empower them to take things into their own hands,” Stanbury said.

He expressed the hope that Jamaicans would temper some of their ambitions regarding the water system, opting instead to implement less sophisticated solutions to satisfy the overall need.

“Hopefully in the process we can get everyone to understand that the US$1.3 billion the government is seeking to provide everybody with water will not come overnight,” he said. “We all will have to satisfy with less sophisticated solutions until the pace of our development allows us to access better.”

The most important thing, Stanbury said, was that the ministry was giving people access to safe drinking water which, even if it was not in the shower, it would at least be in close proximity through catchment tanks.

Access to running water has reached near universality in the Kingston Metropolitan Area, but remains a challenge in many rural areas. Current statistics show only 39 per cent of rural households have piped water — an increase from 33% in 1990, but a decline from the 43% recorded in 1996. A quarter of rural households get water from stand-pipes, and 22% use rain-water tanks. The government is, however, concerned that too many people in rural areas still do not have access to safe drinking water, or must make excessive efforts to fetch water.

Eight per cent of rural households obtain water from rivers, streams and ponds. Of those rural households which rely on standpipes, more than half have to travel over 50 yards, and 13% need to go more than 1,000 yards to fetch it.

It was in this context that a representative of the Coalition for Community Participation in Government, Linnette Vassell, said that she welcomed the water ministry’s suggestion that communities become more involved.

“The government’s plan to provide every community with water by 2005 is not feasible,” she commented to the Sunday Observer after the recent symposium. “The only way they can come even close to this is to have community involvement in water provision.”

“If the community is properly organised it can help in connecting the government’s water system. The community can help collect fees, monitor the system, deal with leakage and oversee chlorination. It can also ensure that no animals are tied near water supply areas such as springs,” she said.

According to Vassell, her organisation had been working with three communities in the St Thomas area — Johnson Mountain, Spring Bank and Tariff — to help in their efforts to get water under the Parish Infrastructure Development Programme.

“Those communities helped to identify the best sources of water in the area, the lands they were on and so on. That project was funded by JSIF at a cost of $8 million,” she said.

Community involvement, she argued, would also help with the problem of non-payment of bills.

“If you are part of the process you will feel more like paying — he who feels it knows it. Community involvement is much more sustainable,” she said.

According to Vassell, the government could not get piped water in every district in Jamaica because of the expense associated with getting it into remote hilly areas. Lower population densities mean that the cost of water provision in rural areas is often higher than in urban areas, while lower incomes in many rural areas make it hard for some customers to meet the full cost of high quality services.

Responsibility for provision of water services in rural areas has been transferred back and forth between the National Water Commission (NWC) and parish councils over the past two decades.

While the government had appealed to the private sector for help, she said it could not be left to them either.

“Most times the remote areas are the poorer ones and the private sector would not want to go into these areas because they would not make back their money. So in cases like this community participation is the only way,” she said. The Coalition for Community Participation in Government represents a number of non-governmental organisations such as the Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers, Jamaica Council of Churches and Jamaica Women’s Political Caucus.

Another participant at the symposium, Dr Alfred Sangster, also endorsed the community participation approach.

“This myth about universal water for 2005 is a pipe dream. If we are serious about the rural areas which will never have piped water for now — we should encourage their productive capacity,” said Sangster, the former principal of the University of Technology.

“We could form a partnership with banks to offer loans to build tanks. For example, people in the dry area of St Elizabeth always build their tanks when they are building their houses. The partnership of the community is critical and the future of water has to be seen not only as a NWC problem but something for all of us to be involved in,” he said.

According to the Water Sector Policy document, Jamaica has made significant progress in providing water services to its people. Across the country as a whole the percentage of households with piped water has risen from 61% in 1990 to 66% in 1997.

The great majority of urban residents have access to safe piped potable water. In the KMA around 97% of households have piped water, and in other towns 79% of households have this facility (up from 73% in 1996). Urban households without piped water rely predominantly on standpipes. About half the standpipe users in urban areas travel 50 yards or less to fetch water.

While coverage is good, reliability of supply to urban households and industrial users is often erratic. While there is sufficient water on the island to meet all water demands the water resources are not necessarily located close to the major centres of water use. The infrastructure to move the water to the areas where it is needed is inadequate in some parts of the country.

The document stated that the government-funded NWC could not adequately meet the country’s needs because of tight budget allocations. It recommended that the government look at privatisation to help cope with the problem.

“Private participation in the Water and Sewerage Sector is expected to bring improvements in the availability, quality and cost-effectiveness of services being delivered,” the document said.

Private participation, it noted, should also contribute to the insulation of the sector from short-term political intervention, a transfer of the risks and responsibilities of ownership from government to the private sector, delivery of a reliable and efficient service to rural communities and increased responsiveness to rural consumers. According to the plan the government would also try to use the following methods to provide water — house connection with running water, water shops, wayside tanks and loading bays, community catchment tanks, stand pipes, trucking and self-provision through individual household rain-water tanks and wells.