IJSR - International Journal of Scientific Research

Mebrahtom Guesh; Tesfalem Hagos Gebremedhn; Weldu Weldegebriel

Volume : VI, Issue : V, May - 2017

Decentralization and Service Delivery in the Afar National Regional State: Governance in the Water Supply Sector

Mebrahtom Guesh, Tesfalem Hagos Gebremedhn, Weldu Weldegebriel

Abstract :

The major objective of the study is to assess the decentralized governance of water supply. It was conducted in the Afar National Regional State in Zone two specifically Aba’ala and Koneba Districts. Household heads were the targets of the study and the service they are getting from the public service of water supply were the main issue of study. This paper assesses the public service of water supply governance at the grass root levels collecting primary source from household residents of the selected district kebelle. The data is collected from 372 households by distributing questionnaire and supplemented by semi–structured interviews held with the concerned bodies of water resource office. The paper identified that, in the Ethiopian federal system that includes decentralization of significant responsibilities to local levels which has the potential to better serve the interests of ordinary citizens, in the Afar National Regional State decentralization is not well practiced or implemented up to the District level. It also identified that much emphasize is not given to the water supply sector that is why there are many kebelle which don’t have any source of water within their kebelle. The people nowadays, living in the districts that investigated are facing severe challenges of getting pure water supply and at the same time the concerned bodies at the district levels don’t have the required level of knowledge with regard to decentralization specifically fiscal decentralization. Therefore, water supply provision should be the area of priority in the regional state. Because achieving pure water supply provision effectively means avoiding several problems of the society, like water contaminated diseases and others, so that achieving MDGs would be easy and simple. Eventually, since decentralization is a policy for better public service at the local level it should be practiced in the real ground.