A community-based approach and its impact to sustainable rural water supply – A case of Kgotlopong ‘Mountain Water Harvesting’

Abstract

Since the advent of the democratic dispensation in 1994, the South African government embarked on strategies and initiatives that speeded up the delivery of basic services, including water, to many communities. However, there are still many other communities, especially in the remote rural areas, that face daunting challenges in accessing basic water. To address these challenges, other communities have developed community-based water supply initiatives. This paper takes a keen interest in such community-based approaches and seeks to examine the case of a small rural community, Kgotlopong, which initiated a community-based ‘mountain water harvesting’ scheme. The paper also stems out of two current studies of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) that were done in Kgotlopong, and it discusses the processes that a group of old-aged men undertook to establish a community-based water committee, the roles played by the committee in ensuring the sustainability of the scheme, and the challenges and successes thereof. Preliminary findings indicate that there is merit in encouraging community-based water supply initiatives and also suggest that there is a much needed institutional support from local government to community-based initiatives.