According to this report, community-based management remains the dominant approach to rural water supplies in Africa, Asia and Latin America, though private sector provision is growing in importance. Self-supply offers a low-cost way to expand privately managed supplies at a household level, though, with the notable exception of Zimbabwe, few formal initiatives have been scaled up beyond a pilot stage. Despite being the most common mode of rural water supply, hand pumps are rarely managed by the private sector. Operation of piped schemes serving small towns is the most common modality of private sector involvement in rural water supplies. Full recovery of capital costs through user fees appears to be rare, particularly in rural Africa, so widespread capital investment by private enterprises and entrepreneurs remains unlikely without external subsidies.