An Assessment of Community Participation in Water Supply and Sanitation Services: The Case of Yombo Dovya and Barabara ya Mwinyi, Water Community Projects, Temeke, Tanzania

The study linked participatory approach and sustainability of water services which was focused in rural areas. Two villages in Temeke district were used as a case study. The methodologies applied to enhance people’s participation were thoroughly discussed. Also examined were the extent to which people participated in the initial project planning, capacity building, and strategies to achieve sustainability. Data collection techniques included; interviews, questionnaire, reference books and physical observations. The literature review was undertaken to see how participation leads to sustainability of water projects. The study found that participation approach leads to water project sustainability only when elements of project sustainability were considered at the early stages. Such elements included operational and maintenance costs, willingness of people to contribute and demands driven. Also capacity building was found to be significant, which included training of community water attendants, and formation of local community based committees or water user groups to carry over the project activities. Immediate areas in which to intervene were recommended, and these included concert efforts to be initiated during the project planning stage, training of WC members, sensitisation seminar on completed projects to enable the communities to carry out the operation and maintenance of water systems, and to make use of trained water attendants, WC members and observe the need to involve communities in all stages of project development. Finally, a conclusion and recommendations were given so as to improve rural water supply and sanitation services.