Using technology for development to sustain community based management of rural water supply services in Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe WASH Sector has been struggling with Community Based Management (CBM) since time immemorial. A lot of documentation exists outlining failure areas. Sticking challenge has always been that of finding lasting solutions to the identified gaps, chief amongst which are service reliability, institutional support for CBM, financing and support mechanisms for CBM, capacity building and the rightful definition of CBM. With this in mind, government has of late been capitalising on the development in technology to curtail some of the above weaknesses in a bid to improve performance of CBM at community level. To a greater extent, this has been happening within the framework of the Rural WASH Information Management System (RWIMS)which has a thrust on reducing down time of water points, improving supply chain for WASH spares, making sector information publicly available for evidenced based planning and strengthening governance systems for CBM.