Umgeni Water的供水面积为7000平方公里，人口约为500万，其中只有约60%的人能获得安全饮用水，而出租人的百分比则有足够的卫生设施。农村地区的地形往往极为崎岖，因此给水利工程师设计高性价比的系统以服务人民带来了问题。大部分人口生活在整个地区各种各样的集中区，但通常集中在彼得马里茨堡和德班的大城市区内和周围。 Umgeni Water为自己设定了到2005年为该地区所有人提供饮用水的目标。1992年，Umgeni Water在温哥华举行的AWWA会议上介绍了农村地区方法背后的原因和使用的方法。本文介绍了根据Umgeni Water的经验，向农村社区提供和随后管理供水计划是如何促进赋权过程和生活在这些地区的人们的赋权的。本文还介绍了两个案例研究。

Umgeni Water's area of supply covers 7000 sq km and has a population of approximately 5 million people of which only about 60% have access to safe drinking water while a lessor percentage have adequate sanitation facilities. The terrain in the rural areas tends to be extremely hilly and thus presents a problem for water engineers to design cost effective systems to serve the people. The bulk of the population live in a wide variety of concentrations throughout the area, but generally centering in and around the Greater Metropolitan Areas of the cities of Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Umgeni Water has set itself the objective of providing potable water for all in its area by the year 2005. The reasoning behind, and the methodology used in, the approach to the rural areas was the subject matter of Umgeni Water's presentation to the AWWA Conference in Vancouver in 1992. This paper presents how, in Umgeni Water's experience, the provision and subsequent administration of water supply schemes to rural communities promotes the empowerment process and the empowerment of the people living in these areas. Two case studies are also presented.