In the quest to address sustainability challenges in OM&M of water yards in Assalaya and Bahar EL Arab localities in East Darfur (ED), CARE supported a Circuit –Rider (CR) approach as post construction support. This study was done to evaluate the progress that has been made so far regarding the improvement in the OM&M and sustainability of
the water yards. The specific objective was to measure improvements in term of water yard break downs and the time taken to repair, community empowerment to effectively manage and operate the facility, assess the supply chain, water tariff collection and adequacy to cover O&M cost and the technology appropriateness. The study also sought
to assess the CR and WUC performance and type of training they received. Data was collected using questionnaire survey, interviews, focus group discussions and field observations and the obtained data analyzed using (IBM SPSS V.254).
The evaluation results show that the project is very relevant to the village needs and State priority and has address one of the WASH sector strategic area. The most powerful success factor of the project was its ground-breaking approach to OM&M of the water facilities through introduction of the CR approach. The approach, based on the evaluation results, proved to be very effective and efficient. Despite the gap in the training of the WUC and limited services being provided by the CRs, the project has made appropriate choice by shifting from the conventional approaches to maintenance that largely been based on community alone taking on the burden of sustaining OM&M to a system that community and SWC share the roles and responsibilities. The evaluation findings also indicate that as a result of the approach, there is highly willingness to pay for further improvement, community trust on SWC has increased and social cohesion is well evidenced from sharing the water facilities by different community groups and segment. However, social mobilization and advocacy are essential components to better organize the communities, raise their awareness and sensitize decision makers, and they have not given the required attention.