Flesh and bones: Working with the grain to improve community management of water

Despite cogent critiques and limited successes, community-based management (CBM) remains central to policies for natural resource management and service delivery. Various approaches have been suggested to strengthen CBM by ‘working with the grain’ of existing social arrangements and relationships. For advocates, such approaches ensure that management arrangements are rooted in local realities and are therefore more likely to be effective. Implementing this approach is, however, methodologically, empirically, and operationally challenging. In this paper, we centre these challenges through a study of community-managed water in rural Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda. We examine water management arrangements by undertaking an in-depth social survey of 150 communities in the three countries. We also undertake yearlong studies in 12 communities in Malawi and Uganda involving 30 diary keepers. This focus on the local is complemented by country-level political economy analyses and district-level sustainability assessments. Our multi-country extensive-intensive research design uncovers the flesh and bones of CBM, and provides explanations for our findings. In Ethiopia, water management arrangements are more likely to be fleshed out – fully formed committees often working in conjunction with other institutions. In Malawi and Uganda, water management arrangements tend to be skeleton crews of key individuals. The position we adopt is located between advocacy and critique. We recognise the potential of working with the grain. We also recognise the considerable challenges of operationalising this approach without reducing it to another standardised checklist or toolbox. In an attempt to reconcile this tension, we identify practical entry points and sketch out requirements for a more socially informed, reflexive, and effective approach to working with the grain. Whether this can be operationalised within the logics of mainstream development, and whether it can ‘save’ the CBM model, remain open questions

Physical factors contributing to rural water supply functionality performance in Malawi

This report communicates the findings generated from one of the project surveys – deconstruction and forensic analysis of 50 individual water points in Malawi. The report presents the new data generated to Malawi’s groundwater resource potential; the nature and condition of hand-pump borehole installations; and the significance of both of these factors to service performance. Based on the evidence collected, the main physical factor affecting functionality performance within Malawi is shown to be the poor condition of handpump components. Functionality of handpumps is considerably higher than in the other study countries, Ethiopia and Uganda, and the resource potential, depth to groundwater and recharge are generally favourable. Improved systems for rapid maintenance and repair would help increase functionality further. This finding should not, however, be considered to be the only driving force of functionality outcomes in these regions of Malawi, and the results of this survey need to be examined alongside the wider project findings. Wider institutional arrangements, resources and dynamics, are likely to play a significant role in the implementation of appropriate borehole construction, siting and design; procurement processes; and the management capacity available for water points at national to local levels

Drinking water quality from rural handpump-boreholes in Africa

Groundwater provides a vital source of drinking water for rural communities in many parts of Africa, particularly in the dry season when there are few safe alternative sources. This paper summarises results from a study (n = 428) assessing dry season water quality, both microbiological and inorganic chemistry, in handpump equipped boreholes (HPBs) across the Ethiopia Highlands (n = 142), Malawi (n = 162) and Uganda (n = 124) using a stratified, randomised sampling design. This study seeks to examine general water quality by randomly sampling rural groundwater supplies across larger areas with different geology and climate. The majority, 72%, of HPBs surveyed provide good quality dry season drinking water as defined by WHO drinking water quality criteria. Within this overall picture, the most notable constraints were from thermotolerant coliforms (TTCs), which exceeded the WHO drinking water guideline of zero colony forming units (cfu/100 ml) in 21% of sites (range 0–626 cfu/100 ml). TTC contamination was found to have a significant and positive correlation with annual average rainfall (ρ = 0.2, p = 0.00003). Across all three countries, WHO health based chemical drinking water quality values were exceeded at 9% of sites and were found for manganese (4%), fluoride (2.6%) and nitrate (2.5%); arsenic concentrations were below the guideline value of 10 μg l−1 (range 400 μg l−1) found in drinking water sources in Uganda challenges the decision by WHO not to formalise a health-based guideline for Mn. While the overall level of microbiological contamination from HPBs is low, results from this study strongly suggest that at a national and regional level, microbiological contamination rather than chemical contamination will provide a greater barrier to achieving targets set for improved drinking water quality under the UN-SDG 6. Efforts should be made to ensure that boreholes are properly sited and constructed effectively to reduce pathogen contamination

An analysis of hand pump boreholes functionality in Malawi

A survey on the functionality of boreholes equipped with hand pumps was undertaken in five districts in Malawi in 2016. The survey aimed at developing a robust evidence-base of the performance of hand pump boreholes by applying a tiered assessment of functionality: (1) working at the time of survey (2) producing the design yield of the borehole; (3) working for >11 months per year and (4) delivering water quality requirements from the World Health Organisation (WHO). This information would guide sustainable future investments in water and sanitation projects. A stratified two-stage random sampling strategy was adopted. The results from the survey indicate that 74% of hand pump boreholes (HPBs) were working at the time of survey; 66% of HPBs passed the design yield of 10 L per minute; 55% met the design yield and also experienced less than one month downtime within a year. Only 43% of HPBs met all the functionality requirements including WHOguidelines for drinking water quality. The survey also assessed the village-level Water Management Arrangements at each water point. Results indicate that the majority of the Water Management Arrangements (86%) are functional or highly functional. The initial exploration of the data shows no simple relationship between the physical functionality and Water Management Arrangements

UPGro Hidden Crisis Research Consortium : project approach for defining and assessing rural water supply functionality and levels of performance

This technical brief is aimed at sharing the learning and approaches developed by the UPGro Hidden Crisis Research Project to look at how the functionality and performance levels of boreholes equipped with handpumps (HPBs), can be assessed using a common set of definitions and methods. A tiered approach to defining and measuring functionality is found to be useful to examining functionality for different scales and purposes of monitoring. This report is aimed at national and regional actors involved in the provision and monitoring of rural water supply functionality. The brief sets out the tiered functionality definitions, and accompanying survey methods, which were developed by the project and have been applied in functionality surveys across Ethiopia, Uganda and Malawi [5-7]. The brief provides a summary of: • The tiered approach to defining and measuring the functionality and performance levels of boreholes equipped with handpumps (HPBs). • A series of survey methods which were found to be useful by the Hidden Crisis project to collect sufficient data to assess HPB functionality across the tiered definition approach. • A series of guidelines which could form core criteria for assessing functionality and performance levels of water points . This summary should be read in conjunction with the appendices which provide details of the methods and approaches described

'Informal settlements': A product of deficient formal land management policies?

Lettere En WysbegeerteGeografie En OmgewingstudiePlease help us populate SUNScholar with the post print version of this article. It can be e-mailed to: [email protected]

An Ecohealth approach to energy justice: Evidence from Malawi’s energy transition from biomass to electrification

Decarbonisation is essential to limiting the electricity sector's contributions to CO2 emissions. Simultaneously, there is recognition of the need to increase electricity access in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, such as in Malawi, with renewable energies suggested as capable of meeting these needs. However, the drive for low carbon electrification, especially in settings where biomass use for cooking is widespread, may act as a driver of new and intersecting injustices. The energy justice framework is well posited to recognise injustices which emerge across energy supply chains, though existing analysis has typically focused on single energy systems. In order to capture injustices emerging in settings of dual biomass use and hydroelectricity generation, it is necessary to consider how energy systems impact on both human health (e.g. air pollution from biomass burning) and the functionality of ecosystems (through deforestation and resulting siltation of rivers). Thus, we argue for an Ecohealth approach to energy justice research, drawing on evidence from Malawi's transition towards electrification

Stuck in loops: Re-conceptualising rural young people’s livelihood trajectories in contexts of poverty

...Economic and Social Research Council (Ref: RES 167-25-0167) Averting 'New Variant Famine' in Southern Africa: building food-secure livelihoods with AIDS-affected young people