Is Community Management an Efficient and Effective Model of Public Service Delivery? Lessons from the Rural Water Supply Sector in Malawi
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1737 |
| Author | Ellie Chowns |
| Published date | 01 October 2015 |
| Date | 01 October 2015 |
IS COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT AN EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE
MODEL OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY? LESSONS FROM THE RURAL
WATER SUPPLY SECTOR IN MALAWI
ELLIE CHOWNS*
University of Birmingham,UK
SUMMARY
Reform of the rural water supply sector occurred widely in the 1990s, when many low-income countries replaced state-led service
provision with decentralized community management in the hope of generating improved technical and financial performance. This
article asks whether these expected benefits have materialized in practice, and whether community management has strengthened
institutional capacity at local, district and national level. Findings from a mixed-methods study in four districts of Malawi show that
both technical and financial performance under community management is weak. Maintenance is rarely done, repairs are slow and
sub-standard, and user committees are unable to collect and save funds: Average savi ngs are just 2% o f expected level s. Despite
these failures, community management has ‘worked’for the state (and donors) as a means of offloading responsibility for public
service provision. The article suggestselements of an alternative framework for rural water supply that would tackle thetechnical
and financial failures of community management, and notes that efforts to promote ‘local ownership’in development must be
undertaken with care. © 2015 The Authors. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
key words—community management; water; sustainability; public service; reform
INTRODUCTION
Reform of the ruralwater supply sector occurred widelyin the 1990s, when many low-income countriesreplaced state-
led centralized service provision with decentralized community management (Schouten and Moriarty, 2003). Al-
though decentralization and citizenparticipation have been importantelements of many public sectorreforms, the rural
water sector is uniquein the degree to which ‘local ownership’has been institutionalized over the past 25 years. In the
context of renewedattention to local ownership in publicsector reform, exemplified by the callfor ‘doing development
differently’and its emphasis on locally driven problemdefinition (Doing Development Differently: The Manifesto),it
seemstimelytoreflect on whether the anticipated benefits of community management have materialized. This article
addresses thisquestion using data from a mixed-methodsstudy of community-managed ruralwater supply in Malawi.
The article is organized as follows. The next section traces the emergence of community management as a reform
intended to solveproblems in the rural water supply sectorand situates it in the wider context of public sector reform.
The expected benefits of community management are outlined, along with some key critiques and concerns, leading
to the research questions. I next introduce the case of Malawi and explain the design, methods and data sources used
in this study. Following, I compare expected and actual performance under community management in three key
areas: technical, financial and institutional performance. The findings show that service delivery under the community
management model is considerably less impressive than theory suggests. I then discuss why the model persists
despite these flaws, consider the implications for ‘local ownership’and ‘doing development differently’, and make
some tentative suggestions as to what an alternative framework might entail.
*Correspondence to: E. Chowns, Teaching Fellow, International Development Department, School of Government and Society, University of
Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. E-mail: e.e.chowns@bham.ac.uk
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 35, 263–276 (2015)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1737
© 2015 The Authors. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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