JSDEWES: Sustainability Assessment and Identification of Determinants in Community-Based Water Supply Projects using Partial Least Squares Path Model

The sustainabilityindex was calculated for CBWS project data collected over a predetermined period (three visits over one year period), and not for a single visit dataset. Also, projects with at least one year of operation were assessed; therefore, the sustainability index represents the long-term or steady status of CBWS projects sustainability. The sustainability index development process can be categorized in four steps as follows:

• Selection of sustainability criteria and indicators - Sustainability criteria and indicators were mainly selected based on literature review and a workshop discussion which was conducted with the participation of representatives from the NGOs, The Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Ministry of Water Resources and Electricity, project engineers and social mobilisers. From a general point of view, CBWS projects can be assessed based on six major indicators which are: Technical, social, reliability and risk, financial, organizational and system sustainability aspects. Based on these criteria, CBWS indicators were selected. Accordingly, 23 indicators were selected for development of the sustainability index (Table 1);

• Appropriation of weight factors for the sustainability index - Based on previous CBWS projects’ experiences in Sudan, and according to the integrated vision of sustainability adopted by the stakeholders, it was suggested to assign all criteria with similar weight and not to undervalue any of them, although the weighting of indicators was different. This concept was considered in the development of the sustainability index by assignment of weight factors for input indicators. Weight factor states the relative importance and effect of the input parameters in the final score of the sustainability index. Since the effectiveness of the sustainability index depends on the assignment of proper weight factors for input parameters, this attempt was performed in contribution with projects’ stakeholders using the Delphi technique. The assigned weight factors of input parameters are given in Table 1;

• Calculation of the sustainability index – The Arithmetic method was used for calculating the sustainability index, where the values of indicators were aggregated to obtain the values of the indicators which subsequently aggregated to obtain the values of indicators as well as for the overall sustainability score. The overall sustainability score was calculated according to the following formula: s i = ∑ i=1 n Wi⌊ q i q max ⌋ (1) where S_i referes to sustainability index value, Wi is the weighting factor, q_i is the rating score for the defined indicator and q_max is the maximum score assigned for the defined indicator. Table 3, shows the sustainability scale based on the index value;

• Sensitivity analysis of the sustainability index – A sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess the influence of input parameters on the results of the overall sustainability index score. This action was implemented by removing the indicators with high weighting factors from the index calculation and comparing the output data of the reduced index to the original index results.

Data were collected by observing rural water supply facilities, interviewing water committees and water users and collecting documentation. The data consisted of the physical condition of the study area (distance and water sources), socioeconomics of the communities (level of participation, and satisfaction with water supply services), water supply management (particularly in financial and institutional management and technology), and water quality. All data were scored and grouped into six variables, i.e. technical, social, financial, and organizational, reliability and sustainability.

Raw data were pre-processed using screening for missed data and outliers using box plot. Pre-processing was followed by exploratory analysis using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to evaluate the relationship between the different variables.

The current model is a qualitative data-driven model. It was built based on qualitative data and can be applied to predict the effect of the variables on the overall sustainability of the project. Data of 382 respondents were grouped into three. The first group is 322 respondents (from 5 different villages) that were used for developing the model. The second one is 40 respondents (from 3 villages) that are used for model validation. The third one is 20 respondents (from 1 village) that are used for the application of the model (prediction of sustainability). Model construction and analysis was carried out using XLSTAT-PLSPM [14]:

• Model hypothesis - The development of the model started with a theoretical model that has been tested by an indication test and a causality test. The model was developed based on latent variables (indicators) relationship hypothesis (Figure 3). The hypotheses were defined based on PCA which was carried out to pre-assess criteria relationships (data not shown);

• Model development and confirmation – Indicators data of CBWS projects were quantified in range 0 to 5. All quantitative data of the indicators were entered into the model as shown in Figure 1, and the model was analyzed and confirmed by PLS-PM. All data were first screened for outliers. Outliers data test was conducted using boxplots. PLS path model build-up began with assessing the unidimensionality of the measurement model in which the reflective indicators must be in a geometrical space of one dimension. The unidimensionality of variables was checked using Cronbach’s alpha, Dillon-Goldstein’s rho and latent variables eigenvalues. Model validity was assessed based on Goodness of Fit (GoF), R2 and the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) [15].

According to the sustainability index results, all water projects were found to be sustainable projects although all projects were scored as low sustainable (Table 2). That means 100% of the studied projects are already running with a low sustainability performance although these projects are considered as young projects (age range between 1 and 4 years).

According to Figure 4, most projects showed low sustainability performance. In general, projects showed low sustainability in technical, social, reliability/risk, financial, organizational and water point sustainability (78%, 67%, 100%, 100%, 100% and 89% respectively). Although 22% and 33% of the projects showed good sustainability performance in both technical and social aspects. This result highlights those technical aspects, and social participation is not the main issue that would guarantee the sustainability of CBWS projects.

For the technical aspects, the lowest sustainability score was recorded in rapid sand filter project in New Halfa locality (Table 2). The low technical aspects performance in New Halfa project was due to the low indicators scores of system functionality and spare parts availability.

This was mainly due to the fact that the running cost and spare parts availability or price of the proposed system are relatively high for the community to pay (this was also reflected in the financial sub-indicator in which New Halfa has the lowest score). Besides, technical issues related to water systems running and maintenance are another limiting factors that could hinder projects from pursuing sustainability objectives especially if no proper training for the community is provided. For the organizational issues, as mentioned before, 100% of the projects were assessed as organisationally fairly sustainable. The lowest sustainability scores were recorded for water pumps project in Rural Kassala locality (SI = 0.56) followed by New Halfa locality (SI = 0.58). The low organizational sustainability score in these projects was due to the weak performance of the Community-Based Unit (CBU), inexistence of trained operators, weak cooperation with external agencies and weak book recording system for fees collection. These organizational constraints were also reported in a Hafir project in Um Rawaba locality.

The sustainability index developed in the current study shows an overall suitability for CBWS projects taking into account technical, social, reliability and risks, financial, organizational and water point sustainability issues. The most important advantages of the sustainability index used in the present study are simple calculation, flexibility in selection of sustainability indicators, indicators and judgment criteria, the weighting of input indicators and presentation of the steady status of sustainability.

Sensitivity analysis indicated that the sustainability index formulation was developed correctly and removal of the most violator input indicators scores changed the sustainability index score of the project and designation in the expected direction. The sustainability index and its sub-indices are simple, flexible, stable and reliable indexing systems and could be used as suitable tools for assessment of the sustainability of other CBWS projects.

Among the many interventions designed to address the rural domestic water supply and sustainability problem, CBM has gained considerable prominence since the late 1980s. Essentially CBM owes much of its origin from the neo-liberal traditions of a reduced role of the state, human rights and empowerment approaches aim development. CBM ought to achieve specific objectives including:

• Identifying development priorities by the target community itself;

• Strengthening the civic skills of the poor through community organizations;

• Enabling communities to work together for the common good (Mansuri and Rao, 2003).

However, the sustainability of CBM remains low and limited throughout Sub-Saharan Africa − including Sudan − due to limitations associated with the current perceptions in CBM and conceptual misunderstandings. Based on our study, sustainability of CBWS projects are influenced by different internal as well as external factors affecting its functional ability, which also have been indicated by many previous researchers [18]–[21]. This is was indicated by the PLS model which explained 89% of the variability in project sustainability reflecting that there are other factors influencing project sustainability by 12% and were not included in the model.

Although community participation and management seems to be a useful tool for sustainable rural water resources management [22]–[24]. In the current study, it was observed that most of the sustainability related problems were mainly due to poor community management as also was reflected by PLS model, indicating that organization issue has a great load on project sustainability (Figure 5). This deficiency in internal community management has also been reflected by [25], reflecting the need for external support to monitor and evaluate CBUs performance and to follow up the meetings conducted with the community. This is in accordance with Harvey and Reed [19], who also indicated that most of the projects related to the community management do not occur immediately after the commissioning of the improved water supply facility, but sometimes later within 1–3 year, which is similar to the projects’ age subjected to the assessment in the current study. Therefore, software activities to leverage communities’ ability in managing the implemented projects are one of the major governmental aspects that should be focused on. Also, building the capacity of rural communities served by water facilities to demand social accountability are key strategies that could potentially improve the impact of limited funding in service delivery. According to interviews with different projects’ stakeholders, the reason behind the lack of enough software activities is funding availability. However, giving the priorities to hardware activities rather than software is a major issue. Although ‘internal budget switching’ from software to hardware activities could be a positive step toward a much better impact on decentralized financing on CBM and functional sustainability of rural point water facilities, undermining the role of community training on implement projects management can jeopardize the whole sustainability issue of the project. It is worth mentioning that the local NGOs are excluded from this equation, and their role in community support is still negligible. Since the 1990s, there have been many rural water supply projects that incorporate demand-driven and community management model, although few of these projects planned for such a post-project back-up for the communities [sometimes it is called Post-Construction Support (PCS)]. However, many studies revealed the importance of such PCS mechanisms [26], [27].

Another determinant that affects the communities’ performance in managing implemented projects is their financial ability. According to the current study, financial issues do not have a direct influence on projects’ sustainability (based on the PLS model results), but they still have a great role in the communities’ ability to maintain the project. The success of CBM models in ensuring functional sustainability of point-water facilities largely depends on the ability and willingness of water users to participate in water-related community development initiatives, especially by making financial contributions to meet the initial cost of construction, major repairs and routine O&M [9]. Although all projects investigated in the current study have a financial contribution mechanism to sustain their project, their financial ability still limited especially if the project running costs are beyond their financial limits. Based on our study, sustainable CBWS project requires internal cooperation as well as external assistance [18]-[21]. Therefore, governmental and/or other stakeholders’ intervention is required to ensure the projects’ functionality and sustainability.

Questioning the sustainability of CBWS projects in Sudan was investigated in the current study. It was clear that the willingness of the community to be positively involved and/or participate with their facilities and manpower in water projects planning and implementation in rural areas were not enough for assuring the sustainability of these projects. There are still limitations in Sudan with the current community-based developmental approaches regarding post-implementation management. According to the present study, these limitations were mainly related to organizational and financial aspects. Although most of the studied CBWS projects showed high community participation during the project planning and implementation phases, this motivation started to decline after the project phase out and handling the service to the community. This is mainly because the communities felt that these projects’ management responsibility is bigger than their capacities especially if they are not supported and trained. Therefore, there is a need to develop models and mechanisms for supporting and backing up the communities in managing their projects after their implementation. Besides, it is clear that the CBWS projects are still in the government’s back yards i.e. the government should back up these communities technically and financially when needed. This backup mechanism should involve all stakeholders (i.e. governmental institutions, funding agency, non-governmental organizations, private sectors, etc.) and it should not be time limited to assure the projects sustainability and achieve the Developmental Goal addressed by the United Nations.