Most rural villages in the Indonesian province of Central Java lack regular access to clean drinking water, and many face severe water shortages, particularly during the dry season. The lack of clean water increases rates of sickness and death and reduces the time and resources available for productive activity, thereby diminishing well-being. Household incomes in these villages are low, and access to other types of infrastructure, such as roads, is limited. More than half of rural villages in Central Java are classified as poor, based on infrastructure, housing, and environmental and population characteristics (World Bank 1995).
To improve access to safe drinking water in Central Java, several governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) initiated rural water projects in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The government of Indonesia implemented two projects that were partially financed by the World Bank, the Water Supply and Sanitation Project for Low Income Communities (WSSLIC) and the Village Infrastructure Project (VIP). WSSLIC serves about 2,000 villages in five Indonesian provinces (Central Java, Southeast Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Maluku, and Nusa Tenggara Timur). VIP consists of two separate projects, Village Infrastructure Project for Java (VIP I) and its extension, Second Village Infrastructure Project (VIP II). VIP I serves 1,200 villages in Java; VIP II serves 2,600 villages in Java and Sumatra.
The objectives of WSSLIC are to provide safe, adequate, and easily accessible water supply and to support hygiene education through community-based arrangements.