Pathways for collaboratively strengthening water and sanitation systems

Pathways for securing government commitment for activities of collaborative approaches

“…By their nature, collaborative approaches are highly intertwined with government, who are the responsible authorities for ensuring service delivery takes place (Uganda Legal Information Institute 1997). Pugel et al (2021) found that progress on goals of the collaborative group hinges on government actors taking up and acting on the group's recommendations. Furthermore, they documented how this 'uptake' can waver and change over time: 'Implementers must continually maintain and regain government [uptake] over the long lifetime of a collaborative approach, especially in contexts affected by political dynamics, shifting priorities, and turnover' (2021, p. 10).…”

“…Commitment can also be influenced by a variety of events and factors outside of the control of collaborative approaches. Rampant turnover, shifting political dynamics, and unpredictable events such as natural disasters can quickly change decision-makers' priorities and challenge efforts to secure commitment for a particular issue (Naiga et al 2015;Pugel et al 2021). Many of the collaboratives included in this study faced turnover or shifting priorities over the course of the 4 years of study, and yet many still were able to secure commitment from relevant decision makers.…”

“…Collaborative approaches rely on uptake from government decision makers in order to make progress (Pugel et al 2021). We investigate what contributes to one component of 'government uptake', government commitment.…”

“…Collaborative approaches are defined here as development programs that bring local-level stakeholders together to address shared, complex problems through joint action and mutual responsibility. These are more than typical partnerships more widely prevalent in the development sectora rigorous cross-case comparison of collaborative approaches in Eastern Africa found that some ways in which these approaches are different from typical partnerships and coordination platforms include establishing 'hub' organizations to lead and coordinate the effort, securing multiple years of funding for jointly implemented projects, bringing together the same set of stakeholders in quarterly meetings, and collectively identifying the problems they will address (Pugel et al 2021). The authors direct readers to a detailed review of literature on collaborative approaches in limited-governance and low-income contexts (Pugel et al 2020), which notes the dearth of rigorous research on collaborative approaches in low-and middle-income countries and development contexts.…”

“…Recent research has found that a key aspect to collaborative approaches making progress is government commitment (Pugel et al 2021), yet there is nascent research regarding how collaborative approaches can gain and maintain government commitment. Thus, alongside the growth of collaborative approaches arises the need for well-founded strategies for how collaborative approaches can gain and maintain government commitment.…”