Professionalized Rural Service Areas: Approaches to Achieve Sustainability at Scale Vol. 2

Standard approaches to rural water supply and sanitation have had some success in increasing access, but have often failed to provide sustainable coverage. Over the past decade, new approaches to rural water supply have begun to emerge in various parts of the world, largely in response to changing rural household conditions and attitudes. Two key elements often characterize these approaches :

• Aggregation (or grouping) of service areas
• An entrepreneurial approach characterized by participation of the domestic private sector, through medium to long-term service contracts that combine operation, maintenance and new construction activities 

These elements have been successful in attracting financing, professionalizing service management, augmenting customer choice, and increasing cost recovery. Although numerous experiences around the world incorporate one or several of these elements, this document suggests that combining all these elements together could deliver maximum benefits for the rural population. In this document, strategies that adopt some or all of these elements are collectively referred to as the Professionalized Rural Service Areas (PRSA) strategy.

The document is structured as follows:

• Volume 1 sets out the strategy, providing policy-makers and potential lenders or investors with examples of proof-of-concept while outlining the main characteristics underlying PRSA (including aggregation and contracting domestic private operators).
• Volume 2 provides guidance on testing the applicability of this proposed strategy under a variety of national contexts and local conditions.

This document was initially conceived for potential application in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the information provided could be applied in a variety of regional contexts.

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