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Uganda has experienced a major policy shift from a supply-driven to a demand-driven approach in rural water provision since 1990. The article sheds light on the rural population's access to safe water within the changing institutional frameworks. We analysed individual and group interviews with key informants from national to community levels and relevant official documents with the 'SocialEcological Systems' framework and the 'design principles'. Since the implementation of the demand-driven approach, rural safe water coverage has slightly improved but operation and maintenance of water sources pose a great challenge hampering, longterm access to safe water. The abrupt and top-down imposed policy shift has resulted in competing signals from old and new policies creating uncertainty and ambiguity about responsibilities, rules and incentives. The analysis shows the importance of taking into account the implications of national institutional disturbances on local collective action for long-term access to safe water.

In the context of recent devolution processes in Uganda, operation and maintenance of drinking water infrastructure still pose a major challenge. Given the importance of water user fees and local collective action for operation and maintenance, it is paramount to consider factors influencing the users’ willingness to contribute. Based on 802 structured household interviews, this article looks into the link between willingness to contribute and actual contribution and presents variables influencing users’ willingness to contribute to water provision. The variables demonstrated by the logistic regression model to increase the likelihood of users’ willingness to contribute are categorized as institutional, bio-physical and demographic ones.

Uganda has experienced a major policy shift from a supply-driven to a demand-driven approach in rural water provision since 1990. The article sheds light on the rural population's access to safe water within the changing institutional frameworks. We analysed individual and group interviews with key informants from national to community levels and relevant official documents with the 'SocialEcological Systems' framework and the 'design principles'. Since the implementation of the demand-driven approach, rural safe water coverage has slightly improved but operation and maintenance of water sources pose a great challenge hampering, longterm access to safe water. The abrupt and top-down imposed policy shift has resulted in competing signals from old and new policies creating uncertainty and ambiguity about responsibilities, rules and incentives. The analysis shows the importance of taking into account the implications of national institutional disturbances on local collective action for long-term access to safe water.

No abstract