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SSP Internet Resource Base
This resource base tries to provide the most accurate and comprehensive information possible on Small Scale Providers (SSPs) in water, sanitation and electricity. Even if the first approaches considered them only as “those who provide service when there is no real solution”, they are now becoming part of the solution. 
Better understanding how the SSPs work enables their involvement as leverage in increasing public services coverage. The documents and studies presented here represent the commitment of the different stakeholders to better understanding the SSPs and to taking them into account in planning exercises and project design. From local electricity network manager to cart pushers and sewage tanker driver, their diversity can be understood thanks to the documents provided here. These are divided into three categories:
For each of these categories, resources are described and, when possible, a link to their internet address is given. Information related to their authors and sponsors, date and geographic field are also available.
The study of these documents allows to underline that several steps can be distinguished in the consideration of small-scale independent operators: they can first be considered as research objects in themselves. Statistics and general considerations on their action are then the main point of interest of the researcher. Secondly, in front of the enormous challenge of the public services coverage, and in order to reach a better knowledge of their potential, they can be studied as instruments for reaching the MDGs, and find their place as an alternative management model that compensates the public utility’s weaknesses. Finally, the question is asked to know how they can be the targets for grants or subsidies of international donors. Their unique capacity to work in impenetrable contexts is making them unavoidable, but this "informality" also represents a true challenge for their integration in the sometimes rigid frameworks created by internationally funded investment programmes. From Case Studies to Global Theories
Much efforts have been made in better understanding, through case studies and actors involvement: how SSPs operate, who are their customers, how do they manage procurement, invoicing, investment, do they target the poor, etc… It is a whole economic system that has been enlightened (see for example “Case studies for Water and Sanitation research program” or “Small-Scale Private Service Providers of Water Supply and Electricity”). It is stunning to see how these operators can quickly appear, develop their markets, stay because they successfully provide services, and finally demonstrate how sustainable they are. An Innovative Solution for Extending Public Servics Coverage
The potential of SSPs for public services development is real: they succeeded in making business in areas where no other entity can meet the demand. Their being informal allows them to efficiently work with informal customers, and take part in the struggle of reaching the MDGs (see for example “How small water enterprises can contribute to the millennium development goals” or “Services d’eau en Afrique subsaharienne”). But it is also interesting to note how sensitive they are to some accurate elements of the context: resource availability, racketeering, household’s income, opportunities for procurement. This explains why they are met more or less present among the cities and small towns of developing countries. Involving SSPs into Development Efforts
From the material we gathered, it appears clearly that involving SSIPs as formal stakeholders of development project is a good idea, but uneasy to implement. The identification of key success factors is an ongoing process, and is still a subject for experiments. The search for efficiency in the allocation of grants calls for transparency and accurate control of flows, and this could seem to be incompatible with the reporting capacities of these operators and their level of formality. Nevertheless, examples given here demonstrate that they turn out to sometimes provide better and more reliable services than incumbent operators. Of this knowledge we can encourage good practices to be implemented to optimize the efficiency of SSIPs (see for example “Supporting Non State Providers of Water Services” or “Mainstreaming Small Scale Private Water Piped Network Providers”). Every day gives new elements to integrate and we will try to keep this internet resource updated. |
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