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1 Kelly, E.; Lee, K.; Shields, K. F.; Cronk, R.; Behnke, N.; Klug, T.; Bartram, J. 2017. The role of social capital and sense of ownership in rural community-managed water systems: qualitative evidence from Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia. Journal of Rural Studies, 56:156-166. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.021]
Water supply ; Communal ownership ; Water management ; Community management ; Collective action ; Community involvement ; Committees ; Sustainability ; Resource management ; Social capital ; Information exchange ; Decision making ; Women's participation ; Socioeconomic environment ; Equity ; Labour ; Developing countries ; Rural communities / Ghana / Kenya / Zambia
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048374)
(0.36 MB)
Many water systems in rural areas of low- and middle-income countries are community-managed. Ensuring the long-term sustainability of community-managed systems is important to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) six, which calls for universal access to safe water. Social capital and sense of ownership are theorized to influence the effectiveness of community-management. To explore this relationship, we conducted a qualitative study of how and why social capital and sense of ownership facilitate water system sustainability, and their relationship to one another. Individual interviews and focus group discussions with community members, water committee members, local leaders, and external support actors were conducted in eighteen communities with successful community-managed water systems in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia. We found that social capital facilitates water system solicitation, water committee elections, resource mobilization, and information sharing. Sense of ownership plays a role in organizing and enabling water system decision processes, physical labor, and resource mobilization. Both social capital and sense of ownership facilitate different forms of community participation that are crucial to processes which support water system sustainability. Further, our results suggest a new theoretical framework where social capital and sense of ownership are inherently linked through community participation and can thereby interact to magnify or undermine each other's effects. Results also suggest that social capital and sense of ownership can have meaningful effects on socioeconomic and gender equality in rural communities by creating opportunities for alternative resource mobilization and female participation. We suggest external support actors actively assess and leverage the social strengths of rural communities, identify successful and skilled community members, encourage female leadership, and emphasize activities and trainings that incorporate social capital and ownership.
2 Kelly, E.; Cronk, R.; Fisher, M.; Bartram, J. 2021. Sanitary inspection, microbial water quality analysis, and water safety in handpumps in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. npj Clean Water, 4:3. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41545-020-00093-z]
Water, sanitation and hygiene ; Water quality ; Biological contamination ; Microbiological analysis ; Risk factors ; Escherichia coli ; Drinking water ; Water supply ; Boreholes ; Manual pumps ; Rural areas ; Models / Africa South of Sahara
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050530)
(0.61 MB) (628 KB)
In sub-Saharan Africa, over half of the population is exposed to contaminated drinking water. The WHO recommends both sanitary inspection and water quality analysis to assess the risk of water source contamination, but the relationship between these tools is poorly understood. We explore the relationship between sanitary inspection and water quality analysis using data from 1028 boreholes with handpumps in 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Sanitary inspection scores and E. coli occurrence were compared using the models described in published literature, and an alternative model that better reflects causal pathways of contamination. In the alternative model, sanitary risk factors were categorized as contamination sources, carriers, or barrier breakdowns, and the relationships between risk factor combinations and E. coli occurrence were assessed. We found no associations between sanitary risk score and E. coli occurrence using either the established or alternative model. These results confirm that sanitary inspections and microbial analyses convey distinct information, and perfect correlation is neither expected nor desired. The alternative model demonstrated a slightly better model fit than most established models, and the model fit further improved when the occurrence of rainfall in the past two days was added as a carrier. We recommend that: implementers train water system operators to conduct sanitary inspection; and researchers work to improve our understanding of the effect of individual sanitary risk factors, as well as incorporate contextual data into their assessments of sanitary inspection and water quality.
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