Sustaining water supply through a phased community management approach: lessons from Ghana’s “oats” water supply scheme

Water sector reforms in Ghana and in other developing countries resulted in the adoption of the community management approach for water systems in an effort to ensure better management and service delivery. However, community management is also plagued internal differences, paucity of technical skills, and insufficient management experience. This article presents a case study of a successful community management system in Ghana that utilized a two-phase comanagement period before a full transfer of management responsibilities to the four communities. The first phase of 3 months was a more intensive comanagement system under which the communities teamed up with public agencies and a private firm to manage the water system. This enabled the communities to acquire hands-on management experience and also tap needed skills from external agencies before a second phase of 3 months characterized by gradual withdrawal of private agency support, and a simultaneous measured assumption of higher responsibilities by the communities. Communities thereafter assumed full management responsibility of the water system and have since then posted significant successes in financial management and operations of the system such that some profits have been generated, there is regular water supply and the system operates without major technical hitches. This strategy illustrates the fact that successful community management system is possible if local capacity is adequately strengthened with external support prior to assumption of full community control of water supply systems, and if assumption of responsibilities is pursued gradually.