Abstract:
The study title is analyzing rural water supply project sustainability of world vision
Ethiopia Wonchi area program, Wonchi district, Ethiopia. Two sampled kebeles out of
15 intervention kebeles were addressed with the study. The study aimed: to identify the
challenges of rural water supply project sustainability, to examine the current status of
rural water supply project and to explore the strategies developed to manage the rural
water supply sustainability in the study area. Mixed method of data collection
(quantitative and qualitative) approaches were employed. The key findings of the study
were: financial gaps (47.7%) responses, technical knowledge gaps (22.7%)responses,
and administrative and management gaps (29.6%) responses of the rural water
management committees. Schemes non-functionality, scheme damages, lack of strong
and committed water manage committee, schemes environmental aspects, project
intervention contamination (schemes ownership), low cost recovery and lack of
effective local scheme by-laws are some of the major challenges to the rural water
supply sustainability identified in the study area. The researcher concluded that the soft
part (capacity building, administration, operation and management) of the rural water
schemes is equally important as the hard part (water infrastructures, the engineering
part) and recommended that should be given unreserved attention to ensure the
sustainability of rural water supply project in the study area
