Pacific Community Water Management Plus Phase 1 Findings Report for Fiji Research Partners: Civil Society Organisation partners: With the support of: Published December 2020 https://watercentre.org/research/research-impacts/pcwm/ Suggested citation: Love, M., Souter, R., Gonzalez Botero, D., Pene, S., and Beal C., 2021. Pacific Community Water Management Plus: Phase 1 Findings Report for Fiji. International WaterCentre, Griffith University. Nathan: Australia. Cover images: D Gonzalez Botero, International WaterCentre CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................. i LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. ii ACRONYMS ......................................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................... iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................... v Purpose .............................................................................................................................................. v Approach ............................................................................................................................................ v Key findings ........................................................................................................................................ vi Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................ vi 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 Context ................................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose of research ............................................................................................................... 2 Objectives of the research ..................................................................................................... 3 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 4 2. WASH AND WATER SITUATION ........................................................................................... 11 Summary of SDG 6 indicators across communities ............................................................. 11 Overview of water systems .................................................................................................. 12 SDG 6.1 service levels ......................................................................................................... 15 Water sources and availaBility ............................................................................................. 16 Water service reliaBility ........................................................................................................ 18 Water accessiBility ............................................................................................................... 19 Water quality and sanitary risk assessments ....................................................................... 21 Drinking water safety risk assessment ................................................................................. 26 Water system satisfaction and aspirational water systems .................................................. 26 Sanitation ......................................................................................................................... 28 Hygiene ............................................................................................................................ 32 WASH-related Health ....................................................................................................... 34 Summary of WASH situation ............................................................................................ 37 3. COMMUNITY SOCIAL CONTEXT & CHARACTERISTICS ................................................... 40 Demographic summary ........................................................................................................ 40 Socio-economics .................................................................................................................. 42 Community Governance ...................................................................................................... 44 Fundraising and other forms of community contribution ...................................................... 46 Cooperation and collective action ........................................................................................ 48 Priority issues in communities .............................................................................................. 49 Gender equality and social inclusion .................................................................................... 51 MoBile telephony .................................................................................................................. 53 4. PHYSICAL SETTING .............................................................................................................. 55 Environment ......................................................................................................................... 56 Infrastructure ........................................................................................................................ 58 Geography ........................................................................................................................... 58 5. ENABLING ACTORS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY .............................................................. 60 Rural WASH government policy ........................................................................................... 60 Projects as the means for external actor engagement ......................................................... 61 WASH political economy analysis ........................................................................................ 62 Community-town relations .................................................................................................... 66 6. COMMUNITY WATER MANAGEMENT .................................................................................. 69 Water management institutions ............................................................................................ 69 Community water management, gender and social inclusion .............................................. 69 Water system maintenance activities and risk management ............................................... 72 Water committee community engagement and collective action ......................................... 73 Water system financing ........................................................................................................ 76 Perceived water management challenges ........................................................................... 78 Water management satisfaction ........................................................................................... 79 Summary of Community Water Management findings ......................................................... 80 7. WHAT IS 'GOOD' COMMUNITY WATER MANAGEMENT IN FIJI? ...................................... 83 Features of ‘good’ water management ................................................................................. 83 Links between WASH and CWM features ........................................................................... 87 Considering structural factors in achieving CWM PLUS ...................................................... 89 8. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 91 9. REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 94 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: A conceptual figure underpinning the PaCWaM+ research, identifying key influencers of community water management, including 'plus' activities by external actors .............................................. 2 Figure 1.2: PaCWaM+ Research Approach and Phases ............................................................................ 3 Figure 1.3: Map of Fiji study sites ................................................................................................................ 5 Figure 1.4: USAID's PEA framework. .......................................................................................................... 9 Figure 2.1: Drinking water, sanitation and hygiene service levels for the eight research sites (2019) compared to the national rural levels (2017) .............................................................................................. 11 Figure 2.2: SDG 6.1 - Drinking water service levels for each site (2019), aggregate for all case studies (2019), and rural national (2017) ............................................................................................................... 15 Figure 2.3: SDG 6.1 Drinking water service levels per site and disaggregated by season (wet and dry