Use of guidelines for RWSS programme planning in Zambia

The integration of domestic water supply with hygiene promotion and sanitation is now generally accepted in theory but is still proving difficult to achieve in practice. The more recent realisation that domestic water and sanitation has to be integrated within overall water resource management has increased the practical difficulty. To assist government managers and planners in the rural water supply and sanitation sector with these challenges, WEDC and the British Geological Survey (BGS), supported by the Commonwealth Science Council, has developed Guidelines for Planning and Designing Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Programmes. The British Department for International Development (DFID) provided funding under its Knowledge and Research Programme. The purpose of this paper is to describe an essential part of the process of developing the Guidelines, the pilot testing, and to discuss issues arising from the test.