WEDC Technical Brief No. 30: Community management

In many countries significant numbers of water supply points and sanitation systems are out of action.

The reasons for these failures were originally assumed to be due to use of inappropriate technology. Now planners and technologists are aware that many problems also arise because the consumers of these services, that is the local community, have not been sufficiently involved in the design, implementation, operation and maintenance of their own water supply and sanitation facilities. It is recommended that for rural and low-income communities the Top Down method must be replaced by the Bottom Up approach.