WATER LIFELINE FOR SHANTY DWELLERS.

Until recently, the residents of some of Luanda's shanty towns had to fork out around a quarter of their subsistence incomes for untreated river water delivered by private vendors. It was a hugely expensive health risk.

At Independence in 1975, Luanda was home to half-a-million people. Today the figure is close to 4m and growing. Most live in shanty towns, deprived of even the most basic services, such as piped water.

Surveys by the international non-governmental organisation, Development Workshop Angola, left no doubt that a system of individual water connections would be prohibitively expensive. The most realistic solution would be stand-pipes, each of which could serve a community of between 50 and 100 families.

Stand-pipes had previously existed in some older parts of the city, through the strapped-forcash public water provider, EPAL. These have consequently fallen into disrepair and are no longer in use. The services were not charged for, and the authorities were unable to prevent illegal connections to pipelines draining off large amounts of the limited supply.

This time, it was felt, stand-pipes would only work if they were the responsibility of the users themselves. After all, the community would be best placed to know who used the water, and to collect the fee accordingly.

A 1992 pilot project in the municipality of Sambizanga linked an unserved area to one of EPAL's main pipes. Development Workshop then helped the local communities to elect water committees which were given training in basic technical and financial management. For many this was their first exercise in local democracy.

The pilot project was a huge success. Development Workshop followed it up with an extensive survey in the impoverished shanties. The people's preference was clear; the community-managed stand-pipe was the best means of delivering water. They were willing to pay for the operational costs and contribute to the initial investment.

To date, 220 stand-pipes have been built, bringing clean affordable water and significant comin unity empowerment - to an estimated 120,000 people.

Arrangements for stand-pipe management differ from one community to the next, especially concerning fee collection.

Ineffective stand-pipe representatives are replaced by their local communities, reflecting the high degree of accountability. Through One World Action, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) is funding a three year extension of the programme.

With the stand-pipe water costing users about 12% of the price they used to pay for dirty water, there's extra cash available for food and other necessities. Other health threats, like the lack of sanitation services, may be improved with similar community-centred initiatives.