The sustainability of rural groundwater supply infrastructure, primarily boreholes fitted with hand pumps, remains a challenge. This study evaluates whether coverage targets set out within the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) inadvertently increased the challenge to sustainably manage water supply infrastructure. Furthermore, the drive towards decentralised service delivery contributes to the financial burden of water supply assets. A sample size of 14,943 Afridev hand pump boreholes was extracted from a comprehensive live data set of 68,984 water points across Malawi to investigate the sustainability burden as emphasis shifts to the 2030 agenda. The results demonstrate that the push for coverage within the MDG era has impacted the sustainability of assets. A lack of proactive approaches towards major repairs and sub-standard borehole construction alongside aging infrastructure contributes to reduced functionality of decentralised supplies. Furthermore, costly rehabilitation is required to bring assets to operational standards, in which external support is commonly relied upon. Acceleration towards the coverage targets has contributed towards unsustainable infrastructure that has further implications moving forward. These findings support the need for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) investment planning to move from a focus on coverage targets to a focus on quality infrastructure and proactive monitoring approaches to reduce the future burden placed on communities.

Local tariffs in the form of household contributions are the primary financial mechanism to fund the maintenance of rural water supplies in Malawi. An investigation was conducted into the tariffs set by rural service providers to sustain drilled boreholes equipped with Afridev handpumps. A binary logistic regression analysis identified significant explanatory variables for the most common identified considerations when setting tariffs, ‘affordability’ and ‘operations and maintenance (O&M) costs’. The results demonstrate tariffs collected less frequently and usage above the design limit of the Afridev (300 users) had lower odds of considering affordability and higher odds of considering O&M costs, than those collected per month and within the design limit. The results further suggest a recognition by service providers of an increased maintenance challenge. High usage, acquiring spare parts, and the collection of tariffs when repairs are required indicate an increased likelihood of considering O&M costs, conversely to considering affordability. The balance of affordability and sustainable maintenance is a perpetual challenge under decentralised service delivery. Investment into ongoing support and supply chains is required for the financial and operational requirements of water supply, to ensure payments for services does not prevent access to clean water at the local level and to achieve the 2030 agenda.

Life-cycle assessment model and regression analysis identifies drivers that negatively impact the lifecycle of community Afridev handpumps under various tariff scenarios for rural community water supply.

Service provision for Afridev handpumps through community management in Malawi is a notable challenge. Essential preventative maintenance is often neglected, and repairs are undertaken on a reactive basis. The costs of major repairs are not recognized at community level and are typically neglected across the lifecycle of infrastructure or left to external stakeholders. The aim of this study was to investigate preventative maintenance and capital maintenance expenditure over the 15-year design lifecycle of 21,997 Afridev handpumps in Malawi, and how costs change based on different local tariff collection scenarios. A total of four tariff collection scenarios were investigated, for assets both subject and not subject to rehabilitation. The findings highlight poor initial capacity building into appropriate cost recovery and maintenance approaches. Major repair costs increase over the pump lifecycle when service consists of the replacement of low-cost, fast-wearing parts. Rehabilitation/major repair costs increase as a result but tend to be focused on simple longer-life components, such as pump rods. In both cases, a reliance on external support was highlighted, as larger costs are primarily covered by donors and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Proactive tariff scenarios may provide a greater capability of replacement throughout the lifecycle of major items when compared to reactive tariff scenarios. It is recommended that policy and practitioners should focus on capacity building of sustainable maintenance models that consider the full lifecycle costs of assets.

Empirical insights were made into the challenges of supplying water to communities within low-income areas of peri-urban Blantyre, Malawi. A networked public water supply is provided to those without a domestic tap via communal water kiosks managed by community-based Water User Associations (WUAs) under a government mandate. There has been considerable debate surrounding the tariff charged for water supplied to such vulnerable communities. However, research has largely failed to consider the costs of WUAs operating the kiosks and the impact on the kiosk tariff. The determination of kiosk tariffs is critical to ensuring lifeline access to a sustainable water supply under Sustainable Development Goal 6. We provide evidence of this from our experience in the field in Blantyre. In particular, we argue that sustainable kiosk running costs cannot be born solely by the end user. A number of reforms are needed to help reduce the kiosk tariff. To reduce WUA costs and the kiosk tariffs, WUAs need more training in financial record keeping and cost management, WUAs should not inherit outstanding kiosk debt upon taking over their operations, and water boards should build kiosk costs over which they have fiscal responsibility into integrated block tariff calculations and subsidize them accordingly.