Does the community-led management model actually hold water?
In my last two blogs, I identified sanitation shortcomings in Wash, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions across Africa. But what do I actually mean when I talk about WASH interventions? Often, these interventions are framed around community-led management. This model was introduced in the 1980s based around the idea that communities 'should operate and maintain their own water and supply systems' in response to the failure of bureaucracies to provide adequate water and sanitation services (Schouten and Moriarty, 2003; Harvey and Reed, 2006). Since then, this public sector reform has gained widespread acceptance from NGOs and development agencies and has been applied to a large majority of interventions in both rural and urban areas across the continent because there is a hope that by decentralising water provision services and placing management into the hands of local communities, there will be more sustainable delivery of services. But most assessments have concluded that the model is 'woefully inadequate' and statistics have proven this too. An estimated 30-60% of operations failed after its implementation (Harvey and Reed, 2006; Chowns, 2015), which begs my first question..
How effective is community-led management?
Research shows community-led management is more effective where there is community participation between it enhances the sense of ownership over facilities such as community toilets or semi-private shared toilets (Chowns 2015). The difference between community management and participation is that the former focuses on training communities to assume the roles and responsibilities of maintaining and operating facilities after its construction. The latter is an empowerment process that involves communities in all stages of the intervention from design, building and managing. Community management is therefore a form of participation that is more likely to succeed with greater community participation (See figure 1).
Figure 1 showing: Differences in 'participation' and 'management' (Harvey and Reed, 2006)
The intervention in the Wanago district of Southern Ethiopia is a success story. The women of Wanago's communities initiated a Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) initiative after recognising the poor maintenance of their traditional latrines. They worked closely with stakeholders including the Southern Regional Health Bureau to design affordable facility models and were heavily involved in the decision-making process for latrine construction. This scale of community participation prompted a newfound sense of ownership that according to surveys, increased on-site access to sanitation from 13% in 2003 to an estimated 88% in 2006 (Banerjee and Morella, 2011) (See figure 2). This also resulted in the sustainable and effective management of the newly-built facilities.
This brings me to my next question..
Is ownership the answer to the success of the community-led management model?
I argue there are flaws to this concept of 'ownership' that does not guarantee complete success. Firstly, ownership allows a single leader or committee to monopolise the management of facilities who are assumed to be acting in the best interest of the community. This gives rise to the possibility of 'elite capture' where facilities are not in fact sustainably managed, but technical and financial assistance is still exploited (i.e. corruption) (Cleaver, 1999). Elite capture is particularly prevalent in the absence of active institutional monitoring. The opposite can also occur. Community participation enhances ownership, but motivation is required to sustain it. If there is no continuous support from institutions, the initial sense of ownership could dissipate. Finally, community-led management initiatives have also failed in cases where there is an assumption only a single leader or committee can reside over ownership of the facilities. Cleaver argues that this is a Western 'cultural idealisation' and uses the notion of bricolage to emphasise the need for more socially informed analysis to avoid exclusion through single ownership (Cleaver, 2002)(stay tuned if you want to hear more about this in my next blog). The flaws in the conception of ownership therefore does not mean community-led management will always succeed. So here's my next question..
Why then has community-led management been applied in so many cases with such limited success?
In the eyes of the development sector, the model has 'worked' because of its widespread uptake by governments, which have allowed them to offload the long-term responsibilities of water and sanitation service provision onto a local level (Chowns, 2015). However, 'ownership' will not succeed without motivation or partnership. Decentralising WASH services will not succeed in either rural or urban areas unless a long-term relationship is established between state bodies, private actors and all users to drive collective action and strengthen long-term community ownership. My next blog will draw on some of these points to see how we can improve this model.
If you're interested in more CLTS case studies, here are five CLTS programs in Haiti, Phillipines, Zambia, Mali and Nepal
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