Rural Africa lags behind global progress to provide safe drinking water to everyone. This paper explores why rural water is different for communities, schools, and healthcare facilities across characteristics of scale, institutions, demand, and finance.
Institutions
Hybrid water rights systems for pro-poor water governance in Africa
This study, based in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe, explores the implications of permit systems for both the most vulnerable and the state, and, identifies options for pro-poor water legislation that also meet the water governance requirements of the state.
Constraining risk narratives: A multidecadal media analysis of drinking water insecurity in Bangladesh
This article explores the history and evolution of drinking water risk in Bangladesh through the construction and interpretation of risk narratives in the media. The author reviews an inventory of 3,211 drinking water specific articles published by the Ittefaqnewspaper between 1980 and 2016.
Establishing hybrid water use rights systems in sub-Saharan Africa: a practical guide for managers
This guideline sets out practical options for water resources managers for amending existing water use rights systems to better support inclusive rural development and farmer-led irrigation while also ensuring the sustainable use of limited water resources.
A Hybrid Approach to Decolonize Formal Water Law in Africa
This study, funded by REACH as part of an Accelerated Grant, explains the state of water permitting in sub-Saharan Africa and proposes a hybrid approach to water law as the way forward.
Understanding factors and actors to achieve sustainable drinking water systems in Kitui County, Kenya
Despite significant progress in building over 3,000 waterpoints across Kitui County in recent years, the challenge of providing sustainable drinking water services remains high. This brief presents the ranking of different factors for sustainable systems based on priorities of 42 Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) actors in a forum hosted in February 2018.
A cultural theory of drinking water risks, values and institutional change
This Policy Brief, based on an article by Koehler et al (2018), explores how drinking water risks are managed in rural Africa and considers pluralist institutional arrangements that enable risks and responsibilities to be re-conceptualised and re-allocated between the state, market and communities to create value for rural water users.
A cultural theory of drinking water risks, values and institutional change
In this article published in Global Environmental Change, the authors apply Mary Douglas’ cultural theory to rural waterpoint management and discuss its operationalisation in pluralist arrangements through networking different management cultures at scale. The theory is tested in coastal Kenya, drawing on findings from a longitudinal study of 3500 households.
Exploring policy perceptions and responsibility of devolved decision-making for water service delivery in Kenya’s 47 county governments
This paper examines whether devolution to Kenya’s 47 counties advances the constitutional mandate for the human right to water. The author draws on interviews from all county water ministries to develop and test a sociopolitical risk model leveraging public choice theory.
Sustaining safely managed drinking water services in rural schools in Chandpur District, Bangladesh
This discussion brief presents insights from a REACH pilot study which explores the benefits of new, automated data loggers, being installed on handpumps across schools in Chandpur District, Bangladesh. The data will be used to review current institutional design to manage and monitor handpumps so schools and their children can benefit from more reliable water.
