Evaluation Summary - Small towns water supply and sanitation project (STWSSP), Tanzania

In Tanzania, the Small towns water supply and sanitation project (STWSSP) was subject to an evaluation in December 2014.

The project was implemented to help fulfill the need for further decentralization in the water sector and provide management models to deal with water supply and sanitation in small towns ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 inhabitants.

The project addressed different management models that could be introduced in order to make small town Urban water and sanitation authorities (UWSAs) more sustainable. However, the government of Tanzania opted for the introduction of a single model which required much more staff and managers without guaranteeing subsidies to help local authorities in the implementation process. Too little attention was given to capacity building and job training, although these components are essential to run UWSAs successfully. Support to sanitation and hygiene promotion was the least successful element of the project.