Organisation of the Maintenance

Objective and Rational

In recent years there have been huge efforts by all stakeholders toward fee contributions (nearly 100% in all Woreda) and towards visible maintenance.

Highly visible and adequate maintenance carried out in Kucha

Incomplete preventive maintenance

There were however numerous gaps in important, and less visible, preventive maintenance:

Uncovered pipe, which might not look critical (left), but which might render the entire system non-functional when it breaks (right)

An unpainted door does not seem like a huge problem (left), but a few years down the line it will! (right)

A leaking, unchanged faucet (left) will lead to (right):

1) Wasting a lot of water and emptying the reservoir

2) Damaging the water point

3) Making it difficult to fetch water

Default in periodic care

Some springs and water points are well cared for by the WP committee.

The WP on left is over 15 years old, the one on the right is more recent, and both are well cared for by their communities.

However, they are numerous instances where this is not the case:

It concerns springs, which must be kept with care, as they are at the head of the network and the most important to guarantee water potablilty.

Or Water Points, where the picture tells more than words

Toward Professional Maintenance

Shifting from a voluntary maintenance of water points to a professional exhaustive maintenance of every component of the networks requires a redefinition of the strategy and a significant workload increase for all actors.

This strategy includes changing mindset. To reinforce this change in mindset, it is necessary to focus on existing problems, the risks to the sustainability of the water service, and the need for all actors to become more professional.

Government experts will have to be involved further in a more organised way, following precise protocols.

Water Agents will have much more work as they will have to diagnose entire pipelines and tackle problems in the full networks. The role of the coach is also to change the mindset regarding Water Agent compensation: real work requires decent compensation.

Definitions:

Throughout this document (if not otherwise specified), Zone expert refers to ZWD Scheme Administration Expert and WWO expert refers to WWO Scheme Administration Expert.

Diagnoses

Identify the network problems, based on a checklist and fill in the Diagnosis Checklist. The diagnosis of all WP is completed in Tikimnt and defines the corrective measures required.

Its good to identify problems

BUT

Not good to identify solutions

Corrective measures

Measures that need to be conducted to solve the problem identified in the diagnosis.

Corrective measures can be:

• a technical action to be taken

e.g. There is a pipe uncovered build a dry wall and backfill * or the need to re-organize the periodic care e.g. Water point is muddy Organisation of daily cleaning

Periodic Care

These are predictable actions that must be performed regularly (from daily to yearly) to keep the network in perfect order.

Organisation of periodic care table

A table listing the persons responsible for each periodic care task and the frequency with which these tasks must be performed. This table must be created for each spring and WP and is written in the WUA Book.

Corrective measure resolution engagement

The federation must formally engage with the WWO by listing corrective measures they will address during the maintenance campaign.

B Corrective measure:

A B corrective measure is one that can be solved by the Association, the Water Agent or the federation.

The federation must undertake to solve all B corrective measures during the maintenance campaign (these B correctives measures can be in a network with B and C WP). If a water point has at least one B corrective measure identified in both the WP itself and the upstream structures, it has a grade of B.

C corrective measure:

A C corrective measure is one that can be solved only with the direct involvement of registered contractors.

A water point with a least one C corrective measure either concerning the WP itself or its upstream network has a grade of C.

Maintenance fail:

Maintenance fails means that at least one B corrective measure identified in Tikimnt in the entire federation has not been properly addressed by Myazyia 30.

The following problems:

• Pipeline uncovered
• Evacuation pipe uncovered
• Door unpainted
• Faucets leaking heavily

must be identified in Tikimnt diagnosis and a corrective measure must be defined to solve them (all B corrective measures). If any one of these problems is not solved by Myazyia 30, the federation will fail due to uncompleted maintenance = Maintenance fail.

Functional Water point:

A water point is considered functional if it is providing reasonably clean water (spring must have at least some basic protection & minimal cover) and cover basic needs (maximum repeated interruption < 3 days).

If a WP does not provide water due to a problem that is reparable by a water agent (pipe break, simple clogging…), it is considered as functional WP.

Both of the above structures are in poor state. However the spring is providing basic function and protection (once a cover is added, which the federation can do), and the WP is providing water.

Therefore both these structures must be considered functional, so users need to pay the yearly fee and federations need to implement every corrective measure in their power.

Both of the above structures are non-functional:

- The spring is not providing basic function nor protection

- The WP is not providing water and its repair is far beyond federation capacity.

These heavy rehabilitations are considered as new investments, the prioritisation of these investments are based on federation score.

Grading:

A simple grade that reflects the diagnosis results and the implementation of the corrective measure.

Careful: a grade by itself does not help identify the exact action to be carried out. The corrective measure is needed to know what has to be done.

Water Point A:

Functional water point with:

- no corrective measure identified during the Tikimnt diagnosis

HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS as recurrent maintenance is needed on most networks

- or a water point where all corrective measures have been solved (between Tir and Myazyia).

Water Point B:

Functional water point with a least one B corrective measure identified in the Tikimnt diagnosis and not yet resolved.

Water Point C:

Functional water point with at least one C corrective measure identified in the diagnosis: and not yet resolved.

Water Point D:

Non-functional water point.

Calandar

The methodologies for the activities listed out in the calendar above can be found in these documents:

Coaching and creating mindset

The objective is to convey to the person directly responsible (the water agent) and their direct supporter/supervisor (the WWO expert) the technical capacity to properly implement activities related to maintenance, as well as a sense of ownership towards a common objective (mindset).

The primary objective is to ensure the sustainability of the water service while minimising future maintenance costs by carrying out the best possible maintenance on a regular basis. All proposed diagnosis and validation processes must be understood as means of supporting this objective.

If actors overlook network problems to increase the federation score, this could lead to network failure. Conversely, if actors see their role as validators only (i.e. failing the federation without providing support), they will not create capacity and will discourage federations.

This gully might not look important but if nothing is done it can lead to the destruction of the spring box downstream - as shown in the picture below.

To impart both technical capacity and mindset, the coaching modules will include office based coaching and field practice, to cover:

Office based coaching:

- Sharing of objectives (with focus on the mindset) – example of improper activity can help explanation - Global understanding of the whole process (calendar) and where we are in the process - Description of the process (theoretical technical knowledge) – which is set out in the details of activities below

Careful: Office based coaching is never enough! A real life demonstration is always necessary for people to really understand the activity.

Field coaching:

Practice the process in the field, exactly as the field level implementers must carry it out. The trainer aims to impart the following:

- Practical technical capacities (ex: being able to see problems) - Organisational approach (ex: being able to brainstorm together to find solutions) - Commitment mindset (ex: follow the whole line)

Supportive mindset (more experienced officials are there to support juniors by accompanying and coaching until they have understood and adopted the proper mindset)

Even if long and time consuming, do not take any shortcuts in the field coaching (demonstration and training). If the superior takes a shortcut, it is most likely that the field implementers will also take liberty with the protocol

⇒ shortcuts will lead to poor maintenance.

For each activity, the coaching must start from the coordination (Mindset Gatekeeper) down to the lower implementer, the complete sequence can involve 4 steps:

• Step 1 (1 Office and 1 Field Session per Zone)

RTF & ARIA Coordination

→ ZTF coordinator, Zone expert, ARIA Zone expert

• Step 2 (1 Office and 1 Field Session per Woreda)

Zone expert and ARIA Zone expert

→ WMT, all WWO expert and ARIA expert

• Step 3 (1 Field Session per Woreda Expert)

ARIA expert accompany each WWO expert in their first federation

• Step 4 (1 Office and 1 Field Session per Federation)

WWO expert support the Water Agents for their first activity