Water Supply & Sanitation in Rural Areas, Indonesia

In rural areas, the government is gradually introducing improved water supply and sanitation facilities; sustainable solutions are developed through community involvement in the design, implementation and operation and maintenance (O&M) of facilities.
Rural water supply development over the last decades has essentially been undertaken by Ministry of Health (MOH). While service coverage figures indicate an increase since the 1980s (although not since the Asian Crisis), many facilities do not function properly and were quickly abandoned because communities were not able to operate and maintain them. Important lessons learned to be considered under future programs include much greater care in analyzing community needs, identifying reliable water sources, and ensuring community participation in the design, implementation and operation of proposed facilities. The conventional piped supply could not be physically connected to many small dwellings in densely populated kampung areas.
In rural areas, more than 90% of communities organize access to water supply through various forms of self-supply arrangements, which are often unreliable and time consuming. Only about 8% of rural communities are served by PDAMs, either through piped distribution systems or water transported by tankers where local enterprise systems exist.
Community-managed systems are estimated to meet the needs of about 30% of the rural population, most of which have been established in rudimentary forms by the communities themselves. These informal systems will need to be sourced from (i) groundwater abstraction (which, however, is restricted in most local governments, and taxed by provincial governments) (ii) bulk supplies from PDAM distribution pipelines, or (iii) handcart vending (which is, more expensive than water provided from any other source). The legal basis for distribution of PDAM water by other providers is often not clear, but it occurs on a massive scale; the success of expanding community managed systems in rural areas could be improved by formalizing self-provision. In rural areas, satisfaction with household sanitation facilities is often linked to the type of water supply facility available. Satisfaction with household latrines is higher in communities with piped water supply (which can be connected to homes), than in villages with point sources (where water for flushing has to be carried home). Under the government’s program for drinking water and sanitation by communities (PAMSIMAS), efforts to establish community based sanitation systems also sought to achieve adequate cost recovery, demonstrating that the use of subsidies was far more likely to fail than the focus of mobilizing communities and offering choice.
Traditionally considered a key component of sanitation, the WSS does not address the problems of solid waste management in Indonesian towns and cities in more detail, apart from noting the main deficiencies and the important inter-linkages with wastewater management that, taken together, could result in significant urban environmental improvements at street level and contribute to expansion of local economies as each area is improved. Solid waste disposal also has an impact on raw water quality in river catchments; this relationship needs to be examined within the water resources sector activities.

Source: KKPPI, Sector Review 2006