Guidance on Preparing Water Service Delivery Plans: A manual for small to medium-sized water utilities in Africa and similar settings

Improving and managing universal services of water and sanitation in a holistic manner is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and addressing the needs of millions of people around the world. Ensuring access to water services is a key factor in working towards the SDGs, and water service delivery planning can support utilities in improving provision of these services. A service delivery plan identifies the actions required and associated costs for achieving a defined level of water services delivery over a defined period of time. This publications is a guideline or how-to manual on preparing water service delivery plans with a focus on small to medium sized organised water utilities having with approximately 5,000 to over 100,000 connections mainly in areas with limited capacity and resources. The manual is simplified enough to ensure that these utilities are able to move from a situation where they are struggling to deliver water services to where basic service levels in terms of water quality, quantity, accessibility, reliability, affordability, and acceptability are met. Meeting these basic service levels provides a strong foundation for the utility to progressively move up the ladder of delivering improved services.