Lessons Learned from Ten Years of Water Projects at Engineers without Borders - USA

Engineers without Borders - USA has been implementing water supply projects in partnership with communities in developing nations for the last 10 years. During these 10 years the organization has grown from one project in one country to hundreds of active water supply projects in dozens of countries. The organization has used the lessons learned from these 10 years of projects to create principles that guide the way that we carry out the assessment, design, implementation, and monitoring of infrastructure projects in partner communities throughout the world. The principles are used by the organization to help identify communities that need and are able to accept the engineering assistance of EWB-USA. They help us work with the partner community to identify and assess the problem with their water supply and develop an engineering solution that can be constructed using locally available materials, labor, and equipment. Most important, they allow the organization to work with communities to develop solutions that can be sustained or maintained by the community using its own financial, technical, and manpower resources. EWB-USA has found that water supply project failures stem often not from specific technical design flaws, but rather from nonengineering issues related to the project. Therefore the EWB-USA development principles concern not only the engineering aspects of the water supply projects but also the essential nonengineering aspects of the projects. The development principles that are described in this paper relate to the EWB-USA relationship with the partner community, community education requirements for a water supply project, in-country partnerships, the appropriateness of technology for a given situation, and the sustainability of water supply projects. Though they were developed by EWB-USA, these principles are applicable for water supply development projects carried out by other organizations.