Towards Community Resilience, Focus on a Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Project in Swaziland

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of different approaches of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in reducing and mitigating against potential risk of disaster and promoting community resilience. Lack of access to safe water supply, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene practices are among the leading causes of illness, death and malnutrition in developing countries. Using a resilience conceptual framework in the design of research, pre and post Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) surveys were administered to 450 randomly selected beneficiaries of a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) supported WASH program in six constituencies that are prone to drought and water borne diseases. Guided direct observation was used to assess the status WASH infrastructure at project inception and completion. Results of the study indicated increases in the percentage of target population with access to safe water, water usage in litres per person and improvement in sanitation and hygiene practices. They were improvements in the community participation, learning and capacity in use and management of WASH infrastructure meaning that effective promotion of WASH during relief, recovery and development programming to build infrastructure and human capacity prepares communities to face future WASH related hazards.