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Impact and economics of community water supply: A study of rural water investment in Kenya
BOOK REVIEW
Impact and Economics of Community Water Supply: A Study of Rural Water Investment in Kenya, by I. D. Carruthers. Agrarian Development Unit, Wye College, Kent, 1973. 120 pp. Price: fl.50. This is the sixth report in the Wye College Development Unit series. It is a very detailed study of piped water supplies in Kenya’s rural areas. The report falls into seven chapters. The first of these gives basic information about the present state of supplies to town and country, together with a great deal of detail about current expenditure on community water development, underlining the considerable attention that has been given in Kenya, as compared with other developing countries, to supplying water and regulating its use by legislation. The second chapter discusses how policies may be evaluated in their contribution to national objectives and how piped water supplies contribute to the more even distribution of income than to enhancing production although, at Development Plan level in Kenya, the stated advantages of water supply development are largely concentrated on enhanced productivity. The author also notes that within the Water Departments,- stated objectives, targets and monitoring against them are, regrettably, missing. Chapter 3 contains a discussion of demand estimates, the applicability of costbenefit analysis to rural water supplies and a review of a number of ‘impact’ studies carried out in East Africa. On the second, the author draws attention to the difficulties of quantification but emphasises that the process of asking questions that the discipline engenders is itself useful in appraising and evaluating such programmes. l’he evidence of the impact studies suggests that water supplies are a necessary but not sufficient element in ‘creating a progressive rural environment,’ which implies that in the appraisal of programmes their costs can best be bracketed with those of complementary inputs. 163
Agricultural Administration Printed in Great Britain
(2) (1975)-o
Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England,
1975
164
BOOKREVIEW
The same kind of conclusion is reached in Chapter 4 where the relation of water supplies to public health is concerned. A wide range of selection and design questions is dealt with in the fifth chapter. The first rural water project in the current programme-at Kyeni-is taken for detailed analysis. The importance of flexibility in design is emphasised in the light of uncertainties about the future-including agricultural technology, population growth and migration, etc. In spite of the Kenya Government’s commitment to providing rural water supplies, as Chapter 6 shows, demand is outrunning the supply of Installations. In these circumstances, self-help schemes involving ‘large and ambitious’ investments are the result. While these schemes are meritorious in principle, problems arise in practice, including what appear to be undesirable fund-raising methods and the possibility of the distortion of the overall strategy of the Government’s plan. The author advocates strengthened technical advisory services and the eventual integration of self-help schemes into the Public system for operation and maintenance. In the final chapter financial issues are discussed. In the rural areas, the author argues, the criterion for the level of water rates should be the local ‘ability to pay’ which, in turn, is broadly related to the local level of rural incomes. Furthermore, on the grounds that there are considerable economies of scale to expansion and that short-run marginal costs are low, full utilisation can best be ensured by subsidising water supply developments in rural areas-that they should be regarded as a social service rather than a self-financing institution. Overall the report is very well presented, in argument, in the marshalling of facts, and in the setting out of conclusions and references. Inevitably the interested reader will find his appetite unsatisfied in certain fringe areas of the subject. It would have been interesting, for instance, to have had an assessment of the possibilities of better small-scale water supplies on the arid margins of those areas fertile and populous enough to warrant piped schemes, or to have had rather more discussion of how expenditure on water supplies can best be compared with investment in other forms of infrastructure within comprehensive government programmes. It is to be hoped the author will have the opportunity to turn his attention to these related problems at some future time. D.S. THORNTON
Impact and Economics of Community Water Supply: A Study of Rural Water Investment in Kenya, by I. D. Carruthers. Agrarian Development Unit, Wye College, Kent, 1973. 120 pp. Price: fl.50. This is the sixth report in the Wye College Development Unit series. It is a very detailed study of piped water supplies in Kenya’s rural areas. The report falls into seven chapters. The first of these gives basic information about the present state of supplies to town and country, together with a great deal of detail about current expenditure on community water development, underlining the considerable attention that has been given in Kenya, as compared with other developing countries, to supplying water and regulating its use by legislation. The second chapter discusses how policies may be evaluated in their contribution to national objectives and how piped water supplies contribute to the more even distribution of income than to enhancing production although, at Development Plan level in Kenya, the stated advantages of water supply development are largely concentrated on enhanced productivity. The author also notes that within the Water Departments,- stated objectives, targets and monitoring against them are, regrettably, missing. Chapter 3 contains a discussion of demand estimates, the applicability of costbenefit analysis to rural water supplies and a review of a number of ‘impact’ studies carried out in East Africa. On the second, the author draws attention to the difficulties of quantification but emphasises that the process of asking questions that the discipline engenders is itself useful in appraising and evaluating such programmes. l’he evidence of the impact studies suggests that water supplies are a necessary but not sufficient element in ‘creating a progressive rural environment,’ which implies that in the appraisal of programmes their costs can best be bracketed with those of complementary inputs. 163
Agricultural Administration Printed in Great Britain
(2) (1975)-o
Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England,
1975
164
BOOKREVIEW
The same kind of conclusion is reached in Chapter 4 where the relation of water supplies to public health is concerned. A wide range of selection and design questions is dealt with in the fifth chapter. The first rural water project in the current programme-at Kyeni-is taken for detailed analysis. The importance of flexibility in design is emphasised in the light of uncertainties about the future-including agricultural technology, population growth and migration, etc. In spite of the Kenya Government’s commitment to providing rural water supplies, as Chapter 6 shows, demand is outrunning the supply of Installations. In these circumstances, self-help schemes involving ‘large and ambitious’ investments are the result. While these schemes are meritorious in principle, problems arise in practice, including what appear to be undesirable fund-raising methods and the possibility of the distortion of the overall strategy of the Government’s plan. The author advocates strengthened technical advisory services and the eventual integration of self-help schemes into the Public system for operation and maintenance. In the final chapter financial issues are discussed. In the rural areas, the author argues, the criterion for the level of water rates should be the local ‘ability to pay’ which, in turn, is broadly related to the local level of rural incomes. Furthermore, on the grounds that there are considerable economies of scale to expansion and that short-run marginal costs are low, full utilisation can best be ensured by subsidising water supply developments in rural areas-that they should be regarded as a social service rather than a self-financing institution. Overall the report is very well presented, in argument, in the marshalling of facts, and in the setting out of conclusions and references. Inevitably the interested reader will find his appetite unsatisfied in certain fringe areas of the subject. It would have been interesting, for instance, to have had an assessment of the possibilities of better small-scale water supplies on the arid margins of those areas fertile and populous enough to warrant piped schemes, or to have had rather more discussion of how expenditure on water supplies can best be compared with investment in other forms of infrastructure within comprehensive government programmes. It is to be hoped the author will have the opportunity to turn his attention to these related problems at some future time. D.S. THORNTON