Franchising O&M water services infrastructure in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa

Abstract

South African research has found that franchising partnerships could alleviate and address many challenges in the operation and maintenance of water services infrastructure. Franchising brings appropriate training to those on-site, and also offers backup off-site skills together with the incentive to both call for those skills and to make them available. The concept is now being piloted with considerable success in the Eastern Cape province. Under the guidance of a franchisor, trainee franchisees are well advanced with initial cleaning and maintenance of the sanitation facilities at several hundred schools, mostly rural.