How can ICT initiatives be designed to improve rural water supply?

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Around the world today, more and more people have access to water supplies. But making sure that these supplies are sustainable is still a problem. To try and solve this, some new initiatives are using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to try and improve the way that water supplies are monitored and maintained.

How well does using ICTs work? Making All Voices Count supported research into two water supply projects using ICTs. It found that using ICTs can make water supply more efficient, but that this only works well when ICT design takes local context and existing reporting systems into account. In Timor Leste, one factor in the success of the water monitoring system was that it integrated electronic and paper-based reporting. In Uganda, an ICT-based monitoring system was much less successful because it used a technology that local people were not comfortable with.

ICTs on their own are not enough to make water supplies more sustainable. This needs wider reform efforts that depend on the social, political and economic forces that shape the way services are provided.