Critical review on the effectiveness of community participation in foreign funded water supply projects for rural development in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka a country with a great civilization, a proud history and a great culture for more than 2500 years witnessed developed ancient agricultural systems, irrigation networks and other famous structures due to Community Participation (CP) in development which prevailed during that time. Even now Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has considered CP within a specific environment in order to achieve objectives in terms of social, financial and political perspectives. As an experienced project manager in foreign funded Rural Water Supply (RWS) projects, my concern is to see whether the community as well as project implementation authorities are achieving the expected goals by implementing the CP concept. This study is to measure the effectiveness of CP in both community and the implementing authority and to compare similar projects with and without CP in every stage. One Hundred and Twenty foreign funded rural water supply projects completed in Anuradhapura district were evaluated and compared with projects without CP. To measure the current status of on going Rural Water Supply (RWS) schemes, data related to water quality, quantity and administrative status were collected. After analyzing the data it is found that the objectives of CP in foreign funded RWS projects are not achieving the goals as expected by the GOSL.