The Role of the Community Management Model towards Improved and Sustainable Access to Potable Water in Ghana (A Case of Nadowli District)

Abstract

<p>In rural Ghana, provision of water facilities adopts the demand driven approach and the facilities are community managed. This approach emerged because the supply driven and centralised system of water facilities could not sustain access to potable water especially in rural areas. The demand driven approach is expected to guarantee sustainability in access to water. In 1994, Ghana launched the National Community Water and Sanitation Programme with Community Management as a core strategy. This paper assesses the role of community management model towards access to water in the Nadowli District in Ghana. Data was collected through households’ interviews, focus group discussions and key informants interviews in 10 communities in the District. The findings showed that the demand-driven, community management model, has improved access to potable water in Ghana and the District in particular. As at December 2008, 88.2% of the District population had access to potable water.</p&gt

The Enabling Environment for Participation in Water and Sanitation: A Conceptual Framework

“…In this regard, participation arguably contributes to reducing conflicts and increasing people's commitment to the outcomes of processes. (e) Improved sustainability: As a result of the above, the effective involvement of users translates into more effective and sustainable management of services and resources [60,71,72]. In some contexts, the failure of the "command and control" model to govern complex systems such as natural resources [73] and to provide services, e.g., [71,74,75], has played a crucial part in justifying the shift toward more public participation in water services management.…”

“…(e) Improved sustainability: As a result of the above, the effective involvement of users translates into more effective and sustainable management of services and resources [60,71,72]. In some contexts, the failure of the "command and control" model to govern complex systems such as natural resources [73] and to provide services, e.g., [71,74,75], has played a crucial part in justifying the shift toward more public participation in water services management. Better inclusion of the public in water resources and services decision-making is presented as more effective than, top-down decision-making [32,44,76], and as a substitute to market-based approaches [23,63].…”

“…In decentralized contexts, local governance structures are needed to establish, sustain, and scale up participation [94]. Other studies underline the necessity for the state to remain actively involved in locally managed services through continued external post-construction monitoring and support [32,71,97,98,100,[120][121][122][123].…”

Challenging pathways to safe water access in rural Uganda: From supply to demand-driven water governance

“…The results of water policy reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa are a mixture of success and failures as indicated by evidence from Uganda (Asingwire 2008;Nkonya et al 2008;Nakano and Otsuka 2011;Mugumya 2013), Ghana (Fielmua 2011), Zambia (Chitonge 2011) or Ethiopia (Lenaerts et al 2013). Due to the still unclear picture of devolution success and failure in Sub-Saharan countries, the institutions coordinating water provision and use in Uganda form an interesting study subject, even more because of the recent change from a supply to a demand-driven approach.…”

Linking Academia and Community: Evidence from Student-Community Engagement in Ghana

“…The physical component in the concept of community has been emphasised (See Conyers, 1981;Strand et al, 2003). According to Conyers, the concept of community entails a group of people in face-to-face contact, who share common values and are guided by a basic harmony of interest and aspirations (cited in Fielmua, 2011). It includes a group of people who may not share a geographical association but do share an interest around culture, social, political, or health issues (Macaulay et al, 1999;Strand et al, 2003).…”