Evidence, ideology, and the policy of community management in Africa

Abstract

This study examines the performance of the policy of community management for rural groundwater supply in Africa. Across the continent, policies that promote community management have dominated the rural water supply sector for decades. As a result, hundreds of thousands of village-level committees have been formed to manage community boreholes equipped with handpumps. With a significant proportion of these handpumps non-functional at any one time, increasing effort is targeted toward understanding the interacting social and physical determinants of this 'hidden crisis'. We conducted a survey of community management arrangements across six hundred sites in rural Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda, examining the extent to which management capacity is related to borehole functionality whilst accounting for a range of contextual variables. The capacity of water management arrangements (WMAs) was assessed according to four dimensions: finance system; affordable maintenance and repair; decision making, rules, and leadership; and external support. The survey reveals that 73.3% of WMAs have medium or high capacity. However, we found no strong relationship between the capacity of the WMA and the functionality of the borehole. Of the four management dimensions, affordable maintenance and repair was the best predictor of borehole functionality. However, the capacity of this dimension was seen to be the lowest overall, with 61.9% of sites weak or non-existent. Our results provide very limited support for the policy of community management, and we suggest that evidence alone has not accounted for its persistence over decades. After a short historical analysis, we conclude that explanation for the endurance of this model can be found in the nexus between evidence, ideology, and policy. We argue that it is this same nexus that will likely ensure the popularity of community management for some time to come, despite new ideas and evidence to the contrary.

Reflecting SDG 6.1 in Rural Water Supply Tariffs: Considering ‘Affordability’ Versus ‘Operations and Maintenance Costs’ in Malawi

“…Conducting preventative maintenance displayed higher odds of considering affordability and O&M costs than when unconducted. This was expected as affordable maintenance and repair is a crucial factor to ongoing functionality, discussed at length by Whaley et al [65]. There is a risk of preventative maintenance being perceived as a redundant exercise to service providers if a water point is operational [19,57,66] as when water supplies are built correctly they can last for years without issue.…”

“…The revenue collected for the maintenance of assets is crucial towards continued functionality [27,65]. Communities that have available financial resources available are less reliant on external support [65,68].…”

“…The revenue collected for the maintenance of assets is crucial towards continued functionality [27,65]. Communities that have available financial resources available are less reliant on external support [65,68]. However, annualized financial resources vary significantly, and the regular collection of tariffs are very rarely set to reflect the life-cycle costs of the handpump [69].…”

Evaluating the Level of the Household Water Service Provided by a Private Water Enterprise in Ghana

“…Community-based management and private utilities have had similar hopes for an improved performance in the past. For instance, the limited ability of community-based management to achieve technical and financial targets has been highlighted in recent years, despite its prevalence in international policy [20][21][22]. Chowns [23] found that maintenance was rarely done, repairs were delayed or sub-standard, and user committees could not save or collect sufficient funds in community-based systems.…”

Rural Water Collection Patterns: Combining Smart Meter Data with User Experiences in Tanzania

“…The underlying capacity of the COWSO to conduct O&M remains a vulnerability to the sustainability of rural water supply, and this is symptomatic of community-based management [18,[44][45][46].…”