Professionalizing manual drilling in Africa: a complimentary strategy to achieve the MDG water target

The Millennium Development Goal target to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water by 2015 is unlikely to be met in sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, there is a need to develop and implement complimentary strategies to conventional approaches to water service provision, especially in rural areas which have the lowest coverage and are most off-target. One such approach is the utilization of manual drilling; however, for this to have significant and sustained impact it is essential that manual drilling be professionalized. This paper outlines the capacity building process required to professionalize manual drilling and ensure that it can make a significant contribution to providing safe water to rural un-served populations. This process includes thorough assessments of sector stakeholders, policies and the physical environment, and the identification, training and certification of drilling enterprises and associated business. The paper also introduces the manual drilling toolkit for use by country-level practitioners.