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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Impact of Participation on Sustainability: An Analysis of the Malawi Rural Piped Scheme Program |
Author: | Kleemeier, Elizabeth |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | World Development |
Volume: | 28 |
Issue: | 5 |
Pages: | 929-944 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Malawi |
Subjects: | popular participation water supply Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(99)00155-2 |
Abstract: | For several decades, donors and governments have used participatory strategies in all kinds of poverty alleviation programmes, in the belief that participation is the most effective means both to deliver and sustain benefits to the poor. This paper explores the assumed link between participation and sustainability by presenting findings from a study of the operation and maintenance of rural water supplies that were constructed under a programme widely praised for its exemplary approach to community participation, viz. the Malawi Rural Piped Scheme Programme. Activities for this programme began in 1968. Today, the smallest schemes, and the newest one, are performing well, but about half the schemes are performing poorly, and a third of these are functioning abysmally. Two implementation decisions would have improved performance, namely cash contributions from consumers, and the construction of smaller schemes. The participatory approach sets up community organizations capable of managing small rural piped gravity schemes, but it does not address the need of larger schemes for support from a competent external agency. Bibliogr., note, sum. |