Problem/resource identification

Article derived from "Supporting community management of rural water supplies": Technical problems are usually easily identified; a tap leaks, water pressure is too low or water doesn’t flow at all. However, underlying managerial problems are less easy to pinpoint. Still, these are equally important to identify and solve, otherwise the technical problems will pop up again and again. Resources required to solve problems include time, money and labour.

Experience has shown that when people are taken through a process of problem identification and when they are allowed to discover linkages between problems they start feeling ‘owners’ of the problem and responsible for getting it solved. Looking for underlying problems also helps people to break down what seem to be large, insurmountable problems that they cannot solve into smaller problems they themselves can solve. Moreover, discussing and identifying community resources usually leads to communities starting to realise their potential to solve problems.

Problem solving cycle is a tool to help solving problems that a community can meet. It is composed by various problem solving step likely to lead to a solution. Once the community has identify the problem, the community by itself, or help by a facilitator, is going through the different steps :

The first step proposed for the community is to take a closer look at the problem to get to know how it is perceived by different members of the community, its nature and its possible causes; Then, they look at underlying causes and decide which of them to address; From the identification of the causes, they can identify potential solutions and the resources required; The next step is the selection of the solution to try; They have to plan for action and monitoring during the implementing of the solution. The last steps are reflecting and evaluating on the solution implemented to take the decision taking on follow-up.