If you are like me, you plan out your home repair or improvement project. Afterwards, you go over to the nearest The Home Depot and Lowes stores to purchase the necessary equipment and supplies. Then you realize after starting your project you forgot something. Oops, you go back to the store, one, two or three times. In the Congo, there are no equivalent stores to The Home Depot or Lowes.
In the Congo experience, it takes MONEY and access to the PHYSICAL item to perform repair and improvement projects. Many times, money is the easiest part of the project because finding the necessary equipment and supplies are nearly impossible. Finally, you need a trained specialist to perform the work. Therefore, sustainability requires money for trained labor, parts, and supplies.
The first step is to acquire the necessary funding for the repair or improvement project. Congolese are becoming accustomed to buying safe drinking water except for the most rural and poorest villages without access. Many water projects can generate income from the sale of safe drinking water within the community. The sale of safe drinking water is a legitimate business. The cost of safe drinking water will vary by the cost and complexity to obtain it. Safe drinking water comes with a price that the consumer must pay. And that could be our source of funds.
The second step is to find and hire a trained technician or specialist for the repair or improvement project. Finding a Congolese who is knowledgeable about an improved water system could be difficult. Although the functioning of an improved water system may be familiar to most of us, I would say that only a few of us have ever repaired an improved water system. Operational knowledge does not imply maintenance and repair knowledge. In Congo, water system implementers should train a cadre of local persons to maintain and repair their water system because we know everything requires some maintenance and repair at some point in time. Plan ahead, no training is simple if you have never experienced it before!
The final and most difficult step is to find and purchase the necessary equipment and supplies. You would think something should be easy after finding the funding and finding a trained technician or specialist. But finding suitable and quality supplies and equipment is a challenge. A Chinese product for the US market is not the same as a Chinese product for the Congolese market. The quality of the products are problematic and worrisome. Plus, the equipment and supplies you may need is to replace a European or American product which may not fix due to difference in version (metric versus US). While testing a product destined for Congo but made in Europe, the US parts would not fit but Amazon came to the rescue. These problems will continue to exist until Congo starts to manufacture products for their market.
Sustainability will continue to be a cancer eating away at water system projects in the Congo and other least-developed countries.
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