Case study: International Donor Agencies -Africa

International Donor Agencies - Africa

Project type: Boreholes and wells (developing community water sources) Date : Jul 2016 Cost : $360M

Synopsis :

One of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) is to increase access to clean water and sanitation facilities for communities that currently lack such facilities. In many rural areas of subSaharanAfrica,itisnotuncommontowalkafewmilestothenearestboreholetogetcleanwater for daily consumption. International donor agencies are responding in good measure and although many positive strides have been made, reports indicate that as much as $360 million USD have been a spent on building boreholes and wells that quickly became inoperative (and in some cases irreparable).

Reasonscitedforabout50,000non-functioningwaterareamongstothers;poorconstruction,lackof expertiseandexperience,poorsupervision,failurecausedbygoodusers,andpoortechnologychoice. "People tend to make assumptions about why water sources fail and blame a lack of spare parts, financing, maintenance problems or climate change, for example. But often, the cause is not clear" (Casey and Carter, WaterAid Global). Those reasons for failure make sense but may not tell the full story.

The UN's 2030 SDG goals call for local community level participation in water and sanitation management projects. Funding initiatives from donors are commendable, however, they sometimes fallshortwhereitmattersmost.Establishingboreholeandwellinfrastructurerequiresmorethanjust implementation, it requires post-project support. In many cases, the implementation of water infrastructureprojectsisabattlehalfwonbecausethedonors/sponsorsfailtoconsiderelementsthat guaranteethatprojectsdeliverlong-termvalue.Thescopeofsuchprojectsneedstoconsidernotonly the installation but also the capacity building activities that ensure the infrastructure receives the appropriate servicing and levels of support needed to ensure its long-term viability. Lack of capacity building underlies many failed donor-funded projects. To overcome the problem, sponsors need todirect their efforts and advocate for mandatory project skills related to capacity building at local authority level to increase chances that projects deliver on the value they were intended for in the first place. National agencies in respective countries who receive funding and tasked to implement nationalinitiativesshouldinsistthatskillsdevelopmenttoensuresustainabilityareanintegralpartof the fundingproposition.

Project management training from reputable organizations can increase the financial investment valuetoestablishcleanwaterinfrastructure,andmoreimportantly,addtothesustainabilitythatwill guarantee that borehole and well users can benefit over the longer term from cleanwater.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:

Operational dysfunction, lack of support to ensure long-term sustainability (Focal imbalance failures), insufficient capacity building at the local level, failure to ensure availability of sufficient resources, lack of project management training and support.

Adapted from Calleam.com (2020)

Question 1

Critically analyse the above case study and construct an argument around why you believe the project had failed. In your discussion explain which elements of good project management were absent and how this affected the outcome of the project.

[30 Marks]