Malawi District Water Supply Project, Phase III, Malawi

Malawi's District Water Supply Phase III (DWS III) project is an integral part of the country's national water services development master plan, implemented by the Ministry of Water Development. Stantec were awarded the design review, supervision and construction contracts for the US$17.5 million scheme in March 2000 and the final elements are expected to be largely completed by the middle of 2004. The main part of the work involves improving access to clean drinking water, principally by the provision of additional connections and public standpipes at a number of local centres spread throughout the country.

DWS III has been jointly funded by the African Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Malawi. The ADB made the majority contribution, covering 84% of the cost as an African development fund (ADF) loan, which drew to a close in December 2003, with the Government making up the remaining requirement.

The project is intended to provide an adequate water supply to meet the ongoing demands of a growing population and increasing urbanisation, while also improving the reliability, efficiency and coverage of existing schemes in the process. Implemented in 13 centres across the country, the DWS III development will ultimately provide for nearly a quarter of a million people.

In addition to upgrading the water supply provision in these district centres, the scheme also encompasses continuing work supervision, technical assistance and financial control at the local level to ensure long-term viability. Elements of the project also address a number of major sanitation and health education issues.

In recent years, water borne infections had risen to rank alongside malaria and HIV/AIDS as leading causes of death in the country, leading to the Government undertaking an initial water services review in 1993, which was funded by the African Development Bank.

This was followed by the formulation of the national master plan in the following year and a programme of work began to provide good quality drinking water to the villages, which had been thought to be the best measure to deal with the situation. However, despite a number of boreholes being drilled in the various communities, diarrhoea and other related diseases remained a major threat to public health. In 1996, the diarrhoea epidemic in the Thyolo district of southern Malawi forced the issue back into centre-stage and the Government initiated DWS III to provide a lasting solution to the problem.

COUNTRY-WIDE WATER SUPPLY SCHEME IMPLEMENTATION

Phase III was specifically designed to meet the objectives established for water supply and quality with minimal additional land use or environmental impacts. To achieve this, and also safeguard the long-term future of the development, the schemes were deliberately kept simple. This also made for an easy hand over to the local water point committees which have been set up to assume responsibility for the ongoing operation and administration after completion. In addition, the age and condition of the pre-existing supply provisions in some of the areas affected meant that each needed detailed, separate consideration to decide how best to upgrade, expand and integrate it into the new project.

A number of factors were examined prior to implementation to ensure that these goals were met, including the use of advanced computer modelling techniques to analyse each individual system allowing optimum pump sizing, water input and distribution details to be determined. The decision to switch extensively to the use of PVC pipes, rather than asbestos cement, arose during this process, as part of the considerations of wider health benefits deliverable by the scheme. In keeping with the country's water services master plan, which covers up to 2010, the work also took account of the need to ensure that the systems put in place had sufficient capacity to accommodate the relevant population projections over the same period.

It is a genuinely country-wide scheme, involving all three of Malawi's regional water boards (RWBs). The Southern and Northern Region have six centres apiece - Domasi, Liwonde, Monkey Bay, Mwanza, Thyolo and Zomba Plateau in the south and Chilumba, Chintheche, Ekwendeni, Mzimba, Nkhata Bay and Rumphi in the north. The Central Region Water Board has just one - Mchinji. Some 240,000 people living around these 13 centres benefit from the project, with individual metered connections provided for those who can afford them in the urban areas and public standpipes for the poorer inhabitants. The project's goal for rural communities was to provide an average 27 litres of drinking water per person per day, with the supply standpipes situated never more than a 0.5km walk away.

This represents a major advance in a country where most of the population of 11 million live in traditional, high density housing areas with no internal plumbing, getting water from communal water points and using unprotected pit latrines. The RWBs are well aware that simply providing good drinking water is not enough on its own to improve public health and so the final phase of the project, due to be completed in 2004, is an extensive education programme and drive to improve sanitation on a local basis.

At the same time, the Water Point Committees (WPCs) training in financial management will continue, to enable them fulfil their roles in running the project's water points and sanitation facilities. This is a vital part of DWS III since there is a long history of donor-funded projects collapsing once the donor has pulled out. ADB funding ceased in December 2003 and the project is now dependent on ordinary men and women at its grassroots level. Accordingly, the WPCs' effectiveness in raising and managing funds is widely viewed as the key to the programme's sustainability.

KEY PLAYERS

The African Development Bank and the Government of Malawi were responsible for funding the project, which was implemented by the Ministry of Water Development. Stantec was the main contractor, responsible for the design review, supervision and construction elements. They worked closely with Chapita consulting engineers who provided support staff and project facilities during the design review. Elizabeth Gondwe was project accountant. Water delivery and distribution is performed by the three respective regional water boards, with local operation and administration being run by water point committees on a day to day basis.