Assessing household RWS functionality service levels: lessons from the field

Many different academic and theoretical definitions of rural water supply (RWS) functionality have been developed over the years, but the issue of sustainable services has once again come to the fore as countries claim to have met their MDG targets, yet the corresponding health and economic benefits have not progressed commensurately. SNV (Netherlands Development Organisation) began its functionality of rural water supply (FRWS) programme in Asia in 2007. In 2011 we switched from measurement of water scheme functionality levels to measuring household (HH ) service levels, and the results of the 2011baseline surveys conducted in Laos and Cambodia in 2013 are the basis for this paper. The paper focuses on practical lessons learnt related to the selected data collection methodologies for monitoring and evaluation of quality, quantity, accessibility and reliability (QQAR) of RWS programmes to assess functionality levels of service of HHs.