Doctoral Dissertation Research: Decentralization, Institutions, and Access to Potable Water in Peri-Urban Settlements

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Scientists are increasingly interested in how rapid population growth and urbanization processes affect the provision of potable water, and finding creative strategies to ensure access to clean water, particularly in poor urban and peri-urban areas of rapidly urbanizing developing countries. Nearly 800 million people have no access to potable water globally. This study will examine whether decentralized community-based institutions can improve access to potable water in peri-urban areas while also promoting related social goals of participation, empowerment, and community development in developing countries. Investigators will examine the role and performance of community-based Water User Associations (WUAs) in providing water and broader social benefits. With centralized and public water-supply infrastructure and services overstretched in many countries, and privatization reforms often failing to enhance water access for the poor, some have recently turned attention to WUA approaches. Such approaches have traditionally been used in rural water supply, and little is known about the opportunities and constraints they offer for poor peri-urban areas. Findings from the study will inform evidence-based policies on community approaches as viable options for improving potable water access and development for impoverished communities in similar developing-country settings. The project will also advance understanding of how women, children, and other underrepresented groups are affected by poor access to water, and explore remedial actions for negative impacts. Through a case study in Lilongwe, the largest and fastest urbanizing city of Malawi, the investigators will use mixed quantitative and qualitative methods involving data from household surveys, key-informant interviews, focus groups, and secondary data analysis informed by an urban political ecology analytical framework, and reinforced with insights from common pool resources theory to answer the specific questions: (1) Have the functions of WUAs and the institutional arrangements they have adopted led to improved access to potable water in peri-urban areas? (2) Have WUAs, their institutional arrangements and modus operandi met social goals of local participation, empowerment, and broader community development? By integrating urban political ecology and common pool resources theory to examine the conditions that enable community approaches to effectively supply water and provide social benefits, the investigators will advance and enrich scholarly debates on the role of community-based approaches for peri-urban water supply and social development, the tradeoffs involved, and their policy implications.