Self-supply of water and sanitation
[3] The approach does not refer to a specific technology or type of water source or sanitation service although it does have to be feasible to use and construct at a low cost and mostly using tools locally available.
"Supported self-supply" refers to a deliberately guided process, usually by a government agency or a non-governmental organization.
[3] Many examples of self-supply taking off in a short time come from situations where government-led service provision broke down (e.g., in countries of the former Soviet Union[4]).
The basic idea of self-supply is that people are providing water for themselves through their own means without direct government support.
For example, a user with an unlined hand dug well with a rope and bucket as a lifting device would be at the bottom of the water ladder.
A user with a hand pump would have the benefit of being able to get a larger volume of water more quickly than with a bucket, and contamination of the source is reduced.
However, even in countries where significant initiatives of self-supply have been observed, these usually are not taken into consideration in official numbers of service coverage.
[3] EMAS in Bolivia uses a hybrid percussion-jetting-rotation manual drilling method for the installation of tube wells.
For example, 35% of the population in Ukraine, 57% in Moldova, 38% in Romania, and 22% in Albania rely on self-supply for a water source.
After a well is prepared, a rope-pump mechanism is installed that is easy to maintain, uses locally sourced parts, and can be up and running in the time span of about a week.
It can also involve the construction of small reservoirs and gutters along the edge of a roof to collect a larger quantity of water.
[24] The filtration device is designed to eliminate waterborne diseases, and as a result, provide safe drinking water for one person for one year.
[26] The study found that a majority of the households surveyed (53 of 86) purchased EMAS technology with no subsidies or loans.
This is a behavior change approach which results in people abandoning open defecation and typically building and using pit latrines instead.
In contrary to a direct intervention approach, where either a government agency or a private actor (usually a non-profit organization) directly provides a defined target group with a specific service level, self-supply relies on establishing mechanisms to let people decide themselves on the level, the location and the timing of the service provided.
[3] In cases where the government can not fulfil this role of a regulator and monitoring agencies, dynamic processes have led to overexploitation of groundwater resources (e.g., in the city of Lagos) and of increased public health problems due to the consumption of groundwater that is naturally contaminated with arsenic.
However, as the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation pointed out, the government can also opt for a strategy of strengthening capacities of the private sector under a supported self-supply approach, allowing its resources to be used efficiently and reaching people in sparsely populated rural areas.
It subsequently became one of the key topics of this network, which continues to update information regarding self-supply under their thematic website.
[30] Whereas in many non-industrialized countries self-supply is a naturally occurring process largely without government supervision, there are also exceptions to this rule.
For example, self-supply has been formally endorsed by the national government of Ethiopia as a service delivery model for water in rural areas.
[3][31] Furthermore, the experience of Thailand (see example on Rainwater Harvesting)[23] shows how a country can start with a government-driven approach and substantial use of subsidies to a self-supply approach once the private sector is strong enough, and that the resources and emphasis of the government agencies then can shift to monitoring water quality.
