How can it be ensured that water and energy systems in developing regions continue to function in the long term and enable the local population to lead a better life in the long term? This question was the focus of the HIT-A project (“Assistance for the maintenance of technical facilities in Africa”), which was carried out from April 3 to July 8, 2025 as part of the modules Management of Project Groups and Project Management Basics at Hof University of Applied Sciences.
The project client was Dr. Frank, representing the Institute for Sustainable Water Systems at Hof University of Applied Sciences (inwa). The project team, consisting of nine students – including Master’s student Marika Schäfer as project manager – worked for several months on a practice-oriented aid to support project managers in development projects in Africa in the planning and implementation of maintenance of technical facilities.
In collaboration with the Water Is Right Foundation, a three-part guide for the long-term maintenance of small and medium-sized water and energy systems in Africa was created.
The three components:
- Scientific analysis of the “Culture of Maintenance” concept – which is intended to enable local specialists to operate technical facilities independently and maintain them in the long term.
- Development of a catalog of criteria – with 20 practical requirements for the maintenance and preservation of technical facilities, taking into account cultural and structural conditions.
- Project comparison of two development projects – to evaluate maintainability using the developed criteria catalog and other methods.
The aim was to develop an applicable and transferable tool that helps project managers to consider maintenance and repair in the early planning phase and thus significantly increase the sustainability of development projects.
The long-term functionality of many technical systems in development projects depends on whether the necessary knowledge for maintenance and servicing has been communicated in sufficient depth – and is retained on site.”
Marika Schäfer, HIT-A project manager
She continues: “Our approach helps to ensure the sustainable operation of technical systems by incorporating cultural differences and regional circumstances into the individual project phases at an early stage. For example, it became clear that specific religious holidays need to be taken into account when planning maintenance intervals. In addition, it was recognized that a clearly structured, locally legitimized distribution of roles and tasks is essential to ensure sustainable technical support – for example in societies with collective structures in which individual responsibilities, for example for technical maintenance, are perceived as foreign or unimportant.”
The maintenance of technical systems is a topic that has been discussed for decades and should be discussed again and again in order to ensure the sustainable operation of systems. As individual as cultures and societies are, so is the path to smooth plant operation.”
Prof. Dr. Manuela Wimmer
Through projects such as HIT-A, Hof University of Applied Sciences underlines its commitment to international development cooperation – and shows how applied research and teaching can contribute to solving global challenges. In future, the knowledge gained from the project can serve as a basis for decision-making for NGOs, foundations or universities that are involved in water and energy infrastructure projects in Africa – and want to make them effective in the long term.
