Sustainability and impact of community water supply and sanitation programmes in Nigeria: An overview

One of the common features in Nigeria and indeed in many developing countries is that the impacts of community water and sanitation programmes are limited, because many of them are ill-conceived and are abandoned prematurely due to numerous attitudinal, institutional and economic factors. Thus, there is lack of sustainability in the sense of service delivery and upkeep of services. This paper proposes a set of pragmatic strategy that would involve all stakeholders, by ensuring effective partnership with a view to raising the sustainability level of community water and sanitation programmes. The paper believes that the key to sustainability is that all stakeholders involved in the consumption/use, maintenance, cost recovery and continuing support, perceive it in their best interest to deliver good and high quality services.