Executive Summary
Companies such as the World Bank and City Water Ltd are helping the United Nations with their Sustainable Development Goals. One of the several goals is clean water and sanitation initiative. The Water Aid project was supposed to bring water to rural Africans in Tanzania. The sponsors were going to do this by boreholes and wells. The plan failed due to lack of knowledge of how to use the utilities by the locals, the quality of equipment used, lack of resources to build, and lack of project managers.
Child washing hands and playing with water at rustic pipe with running drinking water, aid concept.
Introduction:
The United Nation is a group of countries that come together to make decisions that will affect countries and the world as a whole. One of these things that the UN has decided to do to make sure that every country individual gets the best living situation is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).The international donor agency’s or aid agencies are groups of companies who work to bring sustainable water sources to Africa. These are several goals to bring development to countries that struggle with it. The focus of the paper will be the completion of the SDG in Tanzania.
Main Body:
With the creation of SDG initiative the decision to bring water to countries like Tanzania had begun. In the early 2000s, the country had decided to accept development plans from companies that worked with the UN. These donor agencies took on the SDG that the UN had created and decided on what country they would work with. One of the many International Donor Agencies that took on the job was the World Bank from the United Kingdom and City Water Ltd.
The companies were coming together to with the UN to sponsor their Sustainable Water Program. This journey did not come without its hardships as many companies began to renege on their sponsorship as they began to see how hard it was to complete the projects, but the World Bank was one of the groups who stayed committed. They wanted to bring clean water and sanitation facilities to sub Saharan African countries who lack these resources. On an average day, many local communities would have to walk miles to get drinkable water. The City Water article stated that, “ The proportion of customers receiving mains water who enjoyed an uninterrupted supply fell from 100% to 27%”.(City Water,1) The goal for the companies was to boreholes and lay pipes to decrease the distance citizens had to travel to get clean water.
The water system was an excellent upgrade for the local citizens, but it came with its pitfalls. There were an estimated 360 million dollars spent on creating the boreholes and wells that were monitored. The difficulties that it took to build the water system lead the project team to finish it and never follow up. This left the wells and borehole inoperative and useless since they began to rust and become damaged due to misuse like prior years. The local’s citizens had to continue to go back to walking miles to obtain drinkable water
Like any country, Tanzania does have a class system in place. Due to this system, many citizens in Tanzania are economically disadvantaged. The local citizens that are not well off find it hard to live. This is another reason why they can go years without suitable living conditions. Since many wealthy people either don’t live near them or are government officials who this crisis does not affect. The City water article stated, “Although domestic water supply and sanitation were major concerns of citizens, political parties did not consider water a priority policy issue, and it was rarely debated in parliament.”(City Water, 7) Unless citizens were well off the country did not care.
Analysis / Current Situation
Since the beginning of the project, it has become an ordeal for sponsors and the project team. As stakeholders in a project the team, sponsors, and government should always stay committed to their projects. There have been multiple obstacles as the project continues to develop between the lack of project management knowledge and sabotage. Sponsors have begun to question the project and if it is worth building water sources within the Tanzania rural communities.
The lack of project management not only left the project to fail while being completed it left the equipment in poor quality. After a project is completed, the best practice would be to follow up to make sure that your project went well. The project team and managers never considered the project scope after the boreholes and wells were completed. Part of the service should’ve been servicing and customer support. The project managers and, “staff were badly trained and equipped, poorly remunerated and inadequately supervised and disciplined”(City Water,10), the team never provided post-project support. If the teams had provided Tanzania with this level of support, it would show the government their real intention. It would have also made sure that the equipment that was installed would last for an extended amount of time and make sure their customer was left with the best quality and customer service.
From the information provided by project teams, citizens have become violent towards builders. Citizens had created entrepreneurial ventures that supply water to citizens when the system was not working. Since the construction of the boreholes and wells, their businesses have become threatened, which have lead many of them to retaliate against workers. The project team members have been attacked multiple times by local citizens while completing the project which has to lead them not to want to work. Their equipment and pipes have also been damaged overnight by locals. When installing new equipment, there is always a need for maintenance, but with the circumstances of this project, it has become hard and dangerous. This situation has also left the citizens of Tanzania with equipment that they did know how to use. This lead to the project teams equipment being mistreated and damaged.
Since the prior water systems were not completed in the past, the Tanzanian government has stepped in. They have become very wary of the sponsorship groups that have tried to help with their water problem since many of them have left the projects abruptly. The companies are not taking the Tanzanians people water crisis seriously. The Tanzanian government had to step in. They created an independent water initiative to help where the sponsors couldn’t, but this project failed due to greed. They began to try to make money off a water program that was failing. They were billing citizens for water that could barely come through pipes and get picked by the water pump system.
Improvement Suggestions
In such a big project that includes the outcome of individuals lives, I believe that if the World Bank or if Tanzania decides to continue with this project they must have better project management. They should find managers, teams, and sponsors who want better quality work and customer service. If they find a suitable project manager, who follow through with their projects they can get more sponsors and help from other organization outside of Tanzania. These types of project manager will make sure the project is done and that the water system is maintained and that citizens understand how to use the equipment afterward. From the service that was provided to Tanzania, the team lacked experience project managers. If they did have well-trained PM, they would be able to use plans and techniques to make sure the project went well. They also lacked inadequate supervision.
The project managers must consider the people that they are working and create a plan that will benefit them. The best cost of action that the project managers can do is to create a risk register and response. This would allow them to get an idea of what could go wrong during the project and after. They can also figure out an answer to any of the risk that arises and which one of the team members will address the threat.
The Tanzanian government must be active in all decisions that are, add for the lack of capacity building underlies many failed donor-funded projects. To overcome the problem, sponsors need to direct their efforts and advocate for necessary project skills related capacity building at local authority level to increase chances that projects deliver on the value they were intended for in the first place. Governmental agencies in respective countries who received funding and tasked to implement national initiatives should insist that skills development to ensure sustainability are an integral part of the funding proposal.
Although, the Tanzanian government was sponsored by the International donor agency they still have a say in whatever goes on within their country. Everyone from citizens to the World Bank is stakeholders in this project. Since many of the people who would be able to speak for the project they were an upper class, they did not care too much for the more impoverished citizens living. The Tanzanian govern, met must step in the show outside organization that they do care about all of their citizens and they want the best quality of like for them.
Conclusion
The sustainable water goal is an excellent step to making sure that countries and citizens get their needs taken care of. From the Tanzanian Water project, one can see that an idea is better said than done. When projects are implemented, this is when issues arise. Whether it has anything to do with the project managers, the country, and the donor agencies, for the SDG to be implemented there has to be a project plan and risk register made. The donors must also look for cooperation from citizens and the country that they work within. The project managers must also be well trained and able to hold their teams accountable when the project is not being correct. There have been so many different donors who have taken on this project hopefully the World Bank can help the Tanzanian government and citizens.
Biography:
Destiny R Copeland is originally from Jersey City, New Jersey. She attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland where she received her Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Earl Graves School of Business and Management and also a minor in Sociology. She is a matriculating MBA student at Montclair State University with a concentration in Project Management. In between her studies, she runs Eclipse Shades, LLC and mentors young teens. Learn more about the author here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/destiny-copeland-99527371/
Works Cited:
Ferreira, Hylton. Why Do Projects Fail?, Calleam Consulting Ltd, 2018,
Financial Times Millions Wasted in Poor Water Aid Projects.Financial Times, Financial Times,
www.ft.com/content/7baa52f0-14a7-11de-8cd1-0000779fd2ac.
SDGs .:. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. United Nations, United Nations,
sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs.
Why Did City Water Fail?, Water Aid, Water Aid in Tazania, 14 Apr. 2019,
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