Community water supply with ropepumps at family level
Evaluation report of projects from:
- CARE
- Centro de Estudio y Promoción Social
- Embassy of Austria
- Nicaraguan Agriculture Technology Institute
- Foster Parents
- Medicins sans Frontières
Summary in English
Nynke Caroline Post Uiterweer
Wageningen University
Technology Transfer Division - Bombas de Mecate S.A.
Nicaragua, 1999/2000
Summary
The present study is an evaluation of five development projects in Nicaragua and one in El Salvador. The evaluation was carried out by Nynke Caroline Post Uiterweer, in co-operation with Bombas de Mecate S.A. and the development organisations in charge of the projects, namely Centro de Estudio y Promoción Social (CEPS), CARE, Plan Internacional (Foster Parents Plan), the Instituto Nicaragüense de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) and Médicos sin Fronteras Holanda (Medicins sans Frontières - The Netherlands) and took place from August 1999 till January 2000.
Development projects on water and sanitation in rural Nicaragua have switched from a communal to a family level approach. The new strategy is to make use of the existing wells, improving them and applying pumps at family level to assure a total water provision coverage of communities. The development of the ropepump in the nineties opened up the possibility to apply this new strategy in the water and sanitation sector.
The ropepump, cheap in acquisition, has the advantage of easy maintenance and the users themselves can, if necessary, do repairs. The efficiency of the pump is considered the main reason for its high social acceptation.
The national and international development organisations, active in the water and sanitation sector in Nicaragua, are convinced that the ropepump is the most appropriate technology for water provision and can be applied on wells shallower than 60 metres. In Nicaragua an estimate of 100,000 handdug wells can be found, rarely deeper than 60 metres. Some new drilled community wells do reach greater depths.
The aim of this study is to determinate if family level projects can be successful and if so, which are the main factors that lead to their success. It is also aimed to describe the experiences brought by the new strategy and to judge the quality of the ropepump produced by Bombas de Mecate S.A..
Four of the evaluated projects in Nicaragua were focused on community drinking water supply installing ropepumps on every present family well. The fifth project aimed to raise production for small and middle-sized farmers. In this project the pumps were used for irrigation and cattle watering. The pumps installed in the project performed by Medicins sans Frontières in El Salvador were supposed to ensure facilities to an average of seven families.
The most important findings of the evaluation, covering 166 installed ropepumps and 139 questioned families, are:
- Both executing development organisations and favoured communities consider the evaluated projects with family level interventions successful. Families declare that they prefer a normal family well above an optimal equipped communal one. The pumps installed to serve several families are in the end used by an average of three, the same as pumps installed for family use.
- The majority of the families feels responsible for the maintenance and repair of their ropepump, is able to do it, and really carries it out, independent of if they had to pay the pump or not.
- The installation of ropepumps results in a bisection of the use of river water for washing clothes. After pump installation no other water than from the well is used for human consumption. It is thereby demonstrate that water quality improves considerable installing a ropepump on a handdug well.
- The ropepump used for irrigation or for cattle watering can increase production and therefore income for small and middle-sized farmers.
- The by Bombas de Mecate S.A. produced and installed ropepump has a low dropout number. Only 6.6% of the inspected pumps were out of order due to technical failures or negligence of the user.
The pump proves to be a sustainable solution for water supply in rural Nicaragua.
- The ropepump is cheaper in acquisition and maintenance than the traditional India Mark II and Afridev pumps. The ropepump complies, in addition, completely with the conditions of the VLOMM concept (Village Level Operation and Management of Maintenance). The pump is therefore considered to have potential to provide in the international demand for a cheap and sustainable solution for the drinking water supply problem in rural areas.