The study Ivas conducted 10 explore the cha llenges of rural water supply management syslelllrnin Cuto Cida District, East Wollega zone. To this effect, an attempt was made to assess thernfu nctiona lity of the existence water supp ly sc hemes of the distr ict; to investigate therninst itut ional supports for the district's schemes; to exam ine the management system of therndistrict's schemes. To this end, the necessary data f or the study was gathered usingrnquestionnaire, focus group di scussion, key informant interview and personal observation.rnDuring the study, schemes in the study area (Dune Kane and Cari kebele) were observed,rnand interview Ivith five key iriformants and group discussions with three different groupsrn(water and energy office of Cuto Cida district, water commillee and kebele representatives)rnwere made. In addition, one hundred and seventy four sample households and sixty eightrnpeople at community level (water commillee, kebele cabinets, women and youth associations)rncompleted the questionnaires. For household survey, two kebeles (Dune Kane and Cari) werernselected randomly and sample respondents were selected using systematic. random sampling,rnand for questionnaire to be responded by people at community level, the respondents werernselected purposefUlly. The data ji-om both questionnaires were analyzed separately, but therndata collected ji-om key informant interview, focus group discussion and field observationrnwere analyzed with cross reference of the questionnaires. In addition, the data collectedrnthrough the aforementioned tools were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.rnThe findings ji-om the study indicate that the major challenges for the rural water supplyrnand management are poor service from existing schemes because of construction quality ofrnthe schemes, lack of protection, handling problem of beneficiaries and problem of budgetrnallocation for schemes development and maintenance, giving emphasis to supply orientedrnapproach by ignoring how to manage the existing schemes, unsafe drinking water ji-om thernschemes; lack of education or training for the community on how to manage or care for thernschemes, number of beneficiaries of schemes and low capacity of the schemes, weakrncommunity management, no community involvement to select the type of technology to berninstalled, wasting much time at the water point to fetch water, no established waterrncommittee f or most of the schemes, negligible water payment system because of lack ofrnresponsible body to organize, lack of man power with relevance of field of studies, logisticrnproblem and poor communication among the district water and energy office, kebelernrepresentatives, water commillees and the beneficiaries. At the end, some importantrnconclusions and recommendations have been put based on the findings of the study.