Assessment of the functionality of hand-pump boreholes drilled through the Basic Services Fund, South Sudan

After decades of civil war, the Basic Services Fund (BSF), with DFID as lead donor, was a major contributor to the reconstruction efforts of the Government of South Sudan to develop its basic services. Between 2006 and 2012, 29 NGOs received grants for WASH projects mostly for drilling or rehabilitating hand-pump boreholes. Over 6 years, 578 new hand-pump boreholes were drilled. Borehole functionality is however a major challenge in South Sudan: The National Water Policy states that only 30-50 % of the boreholes are functional at any time. To quantify the real outcomes of the BSF and assess the impact of the sustainability-focused monitoring of the BSF Secretariat, a status review was conducted on all drilling activities carried out since 2006, one of the components being to execute a functionality assessment of all BSF boreholes. This article describes the conceptual framework, the methodology as well as the main results of the assessment.