By Kwabena Nyarko and Bismark Dwumfour-Asare. Prepared for the Monitoring sustainable WASH service delivery symposium, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 9-11 April 2013.

1. Tracking direct support and capital
maintenance cost in rural water
service delivery in Ghana
Kwabena B Nyarko 1 and Bismark Dwumfour-Asare2
1. Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
2. University of Education Winneba, Asante-Mampong Campus, Ghana

2. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Outline of presentation
• Introduction
• Objective
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusion
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

3. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Introduction
• Ghana’s rural water coverage has been
increasing steadily but there are concerns with
high levels of non-functional water systems and
the low levels of water service that users receive
• The concerns (high levels of non-functional water
systems and low water service levels) partly due to
inadequate levels of recurrent expenditure.
– Water point systems deliver acceptable services to only 1/3
of the population
– Small towns piped schemes deliver to only 2/3 of the
population
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

4. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Disaggregated Life cycle costs
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

5. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Objective
• To track the direct support and capital
maintenance costs of rural water services:
– Actual expenditure of direct support cost and Capital
maintenance
– Ideal expenditure on direct support and capital
maintenance
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

6. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Methodology
• Monitoring actual direct support and capital
maintenance expenditure from stakeholder.
• Identifying the realistic direct support cost through
budgeting exercise with Districts and CWSA (Govt
agency).
– For districts, LCCA training was used
– National, Technical committee to budget direct support
and Innovative Financing
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

7. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Results –Actual ExpDS
• Actual direct support cost (ExpDS) from the
national, regional and district office ranges
from US$ 0.47 and US$ 0.60 per capita/yr for
decentralised water (or WASH) services in
Ghana.
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

8. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Results – CapManEx
for rural water point systems
• CapManEx for rural water point systems
(boreholes fitted with handpumps) defined as
handpump replacement or well hydro-
fracturing/redevelopment.
• Based on limited data on cost of HP replaced after
25 years,
– CapManEx per handpump borehole is US $ 83 per year
– CapManEx per person per year is US $ 0.3 (design
population) and US $ 0.6 for the actual population
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

9. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Results – CapManEx
for small towns water systems
• Cost per system ranges
from US$ 1,680 to US$
4,179 per year
• The per capita annual cost
ranges from US$ 0.1 to US$
1 (with an average of US$
0.37 per cap/yr).
• Global WASHCost
benchmarks: US$ 3 – 15 per
capita/yr (WASHCost, 2012)
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

10. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Results - Ideal direct support cost
District level expenditure
• Direct support cost per
district ranges from US$
18,000 to US$ 32,000
per year (excluding
salaries)
• Direct support cost per
capita ranges from US$
0.3 to US$ 0.4 per year
(including salaries)
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

11. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Results - Ideal direct support cost
• National and Regional level expenditure ranges from
US $ 0.48 to US $ 0.54 per capita per yr
• Total direct support needed for decentralised WASH
services delivery ranges from US$ 0.72 to US$ 0.89
per capita per yr
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

12. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Ideal Capital Maintenance Expenditure
Is about …….
•Asset Management planning
•Financing Mechanisms
– Pool funding
– Insurance
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

13. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Conclusion
• The WASHCost Life cycle cost approach provides a
good framework for monitoring cost of water service
delivery, which is important for planning and decision
making
• The tracking of direct support led to use of LCCA for
planning and budgeting for direct support cost.
• Tracking of CapManEx has led to discussions on:
• Identification of financing mechanism (pool funding and
insurance)
• Asset management planning
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium

14. Tracking direct support cost and capital maintenance in rural water service delivery in Ghana, Nyarko
Thank you
Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery Symposium