Water supply and environmental sanitation (WATSAN) is part of AfD’s three-year urban development program in Akaki town. In 2004 AfD had planned to construct the following infrastructure facilities in the four operational kebeles in Akaki town:

The planned construction work for 2004 and some of the backlogs from 2003 should have been completed by the end of the year but this was not possible due to the unprecedented cement shortage that occurred throughout the country for several months. This slowed down the progress of the construction work. Moreover, the restructuring of all the kebeles in Addis Ababa City Administration, which was began in 2003, also affected our work progress. The 310 kebeles of the Addis Ababa City Administration were merged together to form into 206 kebeles and into 10 sub-cities as a result of which many government line ministries and collaborating agencies were either merged or were cancelled altogether as they were considered redundant or irrelevant.

The devolution of power to kebele level administration, although very desirable, did affect work progress for some time and as a result some of AfD activities could not be completed as planned since many of the new partner government office positions were not filled up promptly or those who were placed in the various positions were rather new to the work and needed time to acquaint themselves to the new working environment and hence construction permits could not be obtained from the relevant government offices. As a result, AfD was forced to reschedule many of its field activities, particularly in the various water supply and environment sanitation project components by about one year since construction and other permits could not be obtained from the relevant government offices. Accordingly, the construction of the various facilities planned to be completed in 2003 but were not actually accomplished due to the above-mentioned external factors and those planned for the second and third years had to be rescheduled to be completed in early 2005.