Do people have to pay to use water from a project?

The answer to this question lies in another question: "How will repairs and maintenance be taken care of when the well needs care?"

This is part of the planning that takes place when we build a water project, and it is sometimes decided by the community members themselves when they form a water user committee upon a project's completion. Since all water technologies will require some maintenance or repair, the community will usually decide on a small tariff to be charged to all community members who use the well, or a monthly water user fee. Some of the tariffs we've seen amount to two cents USD for a 20-liter (or five-gallon) container of water. 

These funds are saved by the community in a fund, and when repairs or maintenance are needed, the community has the resources set aside to take care of the needed work. This type of planning creates sustainable solutions that can serve the community over an extended period of time. In many ways, it's not much different from the way you and I pay for our water.

While we visit each water point periodically and monitor the status of each one, thanks in part to our generous Water Promise donors, we would prefer to empower the community members with the means of repairing water points themselves.