Water for development: cost recovery and local development financing

This paper is based on the experience of the HAADI-Sud Project, a joint initiative of the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) and PROTOS, a Belgian NGO for water provision in the South West of Benin. As with many community based projects, the challenge of the project was how to deal with the cost recovery issue. But the stakeholders wanted to go beyond this recurrent issue to negotiate the contribution of the water sector to the financing of local development. Through a long process of 4 years and 1500 workshops and other meetings with communities in 60 villages and 5 rural Benin communities the stakeholders came to the conclusion that it is possible through effective water management to finance local development and enhance governance.