The Integrity of Self-Supply Systems (Integrity Talk 13): What do governments have to do with water and sanitation self-supply?
- cgrandadam
- 17 hours ago
- 9 min read
A discussion on responsibilities, costs, opportunities and water quality in self-supply
Self-supply occurs when individuals or small communities independently fund, develop and maintain water and sanitation systems. While self-supply can demonstrate autonomy and resilience and be an opportunity to improve service levels in some cases, it is often a response to major gaps in public service provision. It can also come with high integrity risks, can exacerbate inequalities, and raises concerns related to water quality and sustainability.
People self-provide on a massive scale across the globe, including in high-income countries, and especially (but not exclusively) in rural, remote and peri-urban or informal areas. Some people and communities resort to self-supply because they have no alternatives and no access. Some households invest in own systems for convenience and independence.
Self-supply is not a temporary, localised phenomenon but rather a feature of water and sanitation provision globally. This means it cannot be ignored: there will be always households that self-supply. This can be an opportunity for reaching SDG6, in some cases. However, this also should not be used to dodge or shift responsibility.
This Integrity Talk, organised by the Water Integrity Network (WIN) and the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) on April 2, 2025, looked at these challenges and the path ahead. Sean Furey, Director of RWSN, moderated the panel with:
Alana Potter, member of WIN’s Supervisory Board and Head of Research and Advocacy at the Equality Collective (South Africa) (see section 1 on the human rights to water and sanitation and the implication for self-supply)
Arto Suominen, Researcher at Tampere University (Finland) (see section with case from Finland)
Tim Foster, Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (Australia) (see presentation of research from Asia and the Pacific)
Henk Holtslag, Senior Advisor at MetaMeta SMART Centre Group (The Netherlands) (see section on financing household self-supply)
Chola Mbilima, Senior Financial and Commercial Inspector at NWASCO (Zambia) (see section on case of Zambia and regulation)
Speakers discussed the need to shift self-supply from an invisible and ignored phenomenon to a recognised reality and opportunity, that requires support in order to realise the human rights to water and sanitation and SDG6.
The discussion brought up differences between household-level and community-level self-supply. It showed the challenge of establishing the right balance for support--neither neglect nor over-regulation. The speakers also brought up the role of utilities, and the possibility that they become important counterparts (a case that is being formalised in Zambia). At the same time, they highlighted the need to recognise that there can be a vicious loop between poor municipal services leading to increased self-supply, which could reduce municipal revenue.
As a starting point, the panel established the need for recognition, visibility, and information on the context and specificities of the systems and the needs and priorities of the users.
More resources
Human Rights to Water and Sanitation and the Implications for Self-Supply
“Human rights provide a normative framework for minimum standards and principles against which accountability can be held of public and private actors in courts, and other accountability mechanisms, both invented and invited” –Alana Potter, Equality Collective
Alana Potter (Equality Collective) looked at the reality of self-supply in the legal framework of the human rights to water and sanitation, focusing on cases where self-supply is not an active choice but a response to failures in public service delivery. The lack of public services can have many reasons and include corruption, mismanagement, discrimination, or a lack of prioritisation.
Referring to the Hearing the Unheard campaign, she highlighted that people and communities who self-supply are often responding to discrimination that leaves them behind, they are creatively providing solutions and claiming their rights to water, and they want recognition.
She highlighted three primary obligations for governments to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights to water and sanitation:
The obligation to respect: Governments may not interfere with or curtail the enjoyment of these rights; they cannot prevent or stop people from self-providing or arbitrarily cut off water supply.
To progressively realise the right to water, governments are obliged to take deliberate, concrete and targeted steps to ensure that everyone can access safe, affordable, culturally acceptable water services, wherever they live and however the service is provided.
The obligation to protect the human right to water means ensuring that individuals or entities, including corporations and other private actors, do not interfere with access to safe and sufficient water for everyone. Governments and relevant authorities are responsible for regulating and monitoring activities that could jeopardise people's ability to enjoy their right to water.
The obligation to fulfil the human rights to water and sanitation requires states to ensure access to water and sanitation, and to create an enabling policy and regulatory environment for these rights to be realised and enjoyed by all, wherever they live.
The efforts governments make must be in line with the human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination, participation, transparency, accountability and sustainability or non-retrogression, which align with integrity principles.
She concluded with five measures governments can take to act on these obligations in the context of self-supply:
Creating an enabling legal and regulatory framework, which means recognising supported self-supply in policies, strategies, guidelines, and bylaws (this could include recognising community-based organisations as legal entities, recognising water for small-scale, productive use and doing better to enforce regulations on large-scale users and corporates that abstract and pollute water sources that downstream communities rely on).
Provide financial support for self-supply (this could include smart subsidies, cross-subsidisation, support to vulnerable groups, prioritising of affordable technologies, and quantifying and recognising the costs of self-supply).
Ensuring inter-sectoral and inclusive planning that puts communities at the forefront of decisions around planning and infrastructure development for supported self-supply.
Supporting upgrading of various water supply systems and advancing technologies, manufacturing and the marketing of affordable pumps, manual drilling, storage tanks, household water treatment etc.
Supporting communities through monitoring: of quality, construction standards, surface and groundwater availability, pollution and abstraction by other actors.
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Evidence on Self-Supply in Practice, from Finland to Zambia
Household-managed water supply in rural Finland
“Every country should accept the fact that pipe water supply service cannot reach all. Therefore, the self-supply service delivery model should be part of the water supply access planning.” –Arto Suominen, Tampere University
Arto Suominen (Tampere University) highlighted that only 8 to 10% of the total population in Finland self-provides. However, this represents between 50 to 70% of the rural population (including often vulnerable people, who live remotely and are getting older) and it is not accounted for in official JMP reporting, nor is it monitored in any national database.
He showed responsibility for household supply systems (and water quality) is clearly with their owners and health authorities will intervene only in emergency cases, while environmental regulation is extensive and strictly applied. Groundwater use is free. Technology is available. Most households relying on self-supply are satisfied with their systems and do not want government intervention.
There are however emerging issues:
Transparency and access to information: there is plenty of free, good-quality information online but it is not always available in a format that more elderly people are willing or able to use.
Affordability: Costs for a borehole and pump can be up to 15-20% of average annual income, a significant amount for elderly people with small pension, for example.
Water quality: despite recommendations that water quality be tested at least every three years, this is not often the case. There are problems and there is no centralised self-supply water quality data.
Household water supply across 21 countries in Asia and the Pacific
“Self supply is widespread growing, and in many cases delivering a service that is equal to other service models. But it remains underappreciated and ignored by policy. What's clear is that households have made enormous investment in self supply. And, if we're serious about SDG 6, we need to recognise this and harness the opportunity.” –Tim Foster, Institute for Sustainable Futures
Tim Foster presented the results of recent research showing the very high prevalence of household-level self-supply across 21 countries in Asia and the Pacific. A third of the population self-provides across the region (40% of the population in rural areas, and 20% of the population in urban areas) and this there is an increasing trend.
Interestingly, there is a lot of variation across countries in terms of technology, who resorts to self-supply (sometimes the poorest, sometimes the richest), and water quality. For example, in countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Mongolia, self-supply is more likely to deliver a ‘safely-managed’ service but this is not the case across the board (country factsheets with more detail are available here).
There are two major similarities across the region:
self-supply is generally more reliable than piped supply, and
there is very little in policy that recognises the practice despite its prevalence (at most are cursory mentions).
Financing supported household self-supply
“In Nicaragua there are 50,000 rope pumps installed at family farms, and together these families generated over 100 million dollars in the last 20 years. All this started with 2 million dollars of aid money for training.” –Henk Holtslag, MetaMeta SMART Centre Group
Henk Holtslag (MetaMeta SMART Centre Group) discussed water quality and water availability and shared experiences on the cost-effectiveness of the supported self-supply service delivery model with examples from rural areas in Zambia, Tanzania, and Nicaragua, where investments in self-supply or home water systems have had significant returns. He opened up four main proposals for discussion:
First, supporting the mainstreaming of household water treatment solutions for any service delivery model, as promoted by the WHO (especially water filters, that have been proven as effective). Actions can include large-scale awareness raising, building supply chains, and subsidies for the poorest. It is an approach he claimed could cost as little as $4 per person, in line with the “2 with 8” water action commitment submitted to the UN to provide safe water to 2 billion people with $8 billion.
Second, supporting self-supply as a cost-effective solution to reduce costs to reach SDG6.1 in rural areas, to increase pump functionality, and to impact on poverty and other SDGs. He grounded this proposition with evidence showing that supporting household-level self-supply costs governments or funders 50% less than conventional community supply approaches. He showed examples indicating that a one-time subsidy of $25 per person would be sufficient to reach SDG6.1 in rural areas and that that when households own their wells,, they can generate income through the multiple uses of water, they will better maintain their systems and share water for domestic use with other people.
Third, he suggested making similar water subsidies a basic right, on the premise that, in practice, people who already have “safely managed” or “basic service” received a subsidy for capital expenditure from government and /or NGOs of at least $25 per person. Those who still lack basic service deserve a similar subsidy.
Fourth, he claimed that household level self-supply could be less vulnerable to corruption than communal supply.
A regulatory model for supported self-supply: the case of Zambia
“We cannot do away with self-supply systems. These are integral because they come in to cover a gap. (…) But we need rules for them to be able to actually operate effectively. (…) We need systems that will allow them to operate and be able to deal with integrity risks.” –Chola Mbilima, NWASCO
Chola Mbilima (NWASCO) discussed the integrity risks she has seen in relation to community-self-supply in Zambia: exploitation of vulnerable groups, low service levels, overpricing or even extortionary pricing, bribery. She also mentioned the lack of redress mechanisms: when the system isn’t satisfactory, where do you go? Who is accountable, and to whom? When there is a major breakdown, what then?
In response, at the policy level and in regulation, Zambia has developed a framework to clarify accountability paths. First with a legal framework that recognises and documents self-supply systems, then by regulating, to ensure utilities act as umbrella organisations for self-supply systems in the area and support and oversee these systems. This means the utilities enter a formal agreement with the self-supply system that they jointly negotiate the parameters of. Utilities can provide technical or financial support. They have a role in monitoring water quality. The aim is sustainable service delivery models that will allow for integrity.
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Last Words on Finance and Responsibility
“At the end of the day you are doing that work to support the overall objective of government. What I see is that there's a lot of inequity. Because when we talk about self-supply, then everybody says, well, it's the household that should finance. But when we talk about big systems, the government will actually go out of its way to borrow money to go and put up these systems. And yet, in most cases, for example with sanitation, those systems will actually benefit a very small portion of the population. The majority are on self-supply, and they don't get to benefit. I feel like government should find its place in financing these self-supply systems, and they must be creative about it.” –Chola Mbilima, NWASCO
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Integrity Talk 13 Recording