Northern and Central Regions Water Supply and Sanitation Sector

The free connection policy has clearly shown its enormous impact on water supply coverage. A condition of connecting a premise to the water supply is that it must have a sanitation facility complying with local sanitation regulations. Residents are willing to install an approved sanitation facility so they can access the free connection to the piped system. Moreover, this policy has tremendously impacted sanitation coverage in the target communities. The tariff adjustments enabling the participating provincial nam papas substantially to comply with the agreed financial objectives for the sector have demonstrated that key reforms do need to be leveraged from closely linked investments. The executing agency has acknowledged the success of the tariff reform leveraged off the water supply investments under the project. Design of the project was developed based on an understanding that a significant degree of sector reform had been achieved and capacity developed under previous initiatives. In reality, this understanding was overly optimistic. With the benefit of hindsight, the design was too complex and ambitious, such that the scope exceeded the resources available and the absorptive capacity of some stakeholder institutions. Procurement packaging needs to be rationalized for effective and efficient contract management. No matter how small, contracts still require significant resources for bid document preparation, bid evaluation, contract negotiation and award, and contract management.