1. Building Sustainable Capital for
WASH
Presentation at Mole XXIII Conference, UDS
International Conference Center, Tamale
21st – 25th August 2012
SkyFox Ltd

2. Introduction/Background
Under community ownership and management (COM) concept,
communities bear:
 100% of operations and maintenance costs
 100% system expansion costs
 100% Capital replacement costs
SkyFox Ltd

3. Challenges to building sustainable capital at
the community level
• Qualified personnel for specialized roles eg
accountants for small towns
• Collection (lack of tariff, inadequate tariff,
ineffective collection, ineffective controls at
collection points)
• Management (Banking, pilfering, abuse)
SkyFox Ltd

4. Challenges to building sustainable
capital at the community level - 2
• Growth (lack of it, leading to erosion of
value resulting from inflation, discrete, lack
of scale)
• Catastrophic events – Power failures
leading to burning of motors, floods etc
• Inflation
SkyFox Ltd

5. Proposed solutions
1. Collection: Better community
enforcement based on best practices
2. Management :
– District level accounting support
– Mobile Banking,
– District Assembly Audit
SkyFox Ltd

6. Proposed solutions -2
3. Investment
 Community based savings and loans,
 Pooling and tapping on capital market
4. Community based risk pooling and risk
sharing schemes, (eg, Water Mutual
Insurance and Commercial Insurance)
– Can deal with catastrophic events
SkyFox Ltd

7. Policy Recommendations
• Implement National Water Fund – starting
with non-state funding sources
• Elevate CWSA from Agency to authority,
with greater financial oversight
responsibility over rural water operations
• Redefine ownership of the portion of the
funds to be set aside for capital replacement
- from community to state (CWSA)
SkyFox Ltd

8. Policy Recommendations
• Compulsory two-tier investment policy for
Community Water Management Teams
1. Compulsory contribution to a Pooled fund -
CWSA level (20%)
2. Compulsory contribution to a Private financial
firm of community ‘s own choice
SkyFox Ltd

9. Conclusion
• Maximum financial benefits of community
management can only be realized if the
proper balance of decentralization versus
central control is achieved
SkyFox Ltd

10. • Thank you
• For more information contact
• skyfoxltd@gmail.com
SkyFox Ltd