IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v39y2011i9p1663-1675.html

Determinants of Performance of Community-Based Drinking Water Organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Madrigal, Róger
  • Alpízar, Francisco
  • Schlüter, Achim

Abstract

Summary This paper presents an institutional analysis of the underlying factors affecting the performance of community-based drinking water organizations in rural Costa Rica. More than 1,000 of these organizations provide water to 60% of the rural population and show great disparity in their performances. Using a qualitative approach and matching techniques to ensure comparability, the paper analyzes four representative communities. The results highlight the relevance of a demand-driven approach with downward accountability, working rules for tariff collection and infrastructure maintenance, and attributes of water committee members as the chief conditions that promote better financial health, infrastructure condition and user satisfaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Madrigal, Róger & Alpízar, Francisco & Schlüter, Achim, 2011. "Determinants of Performance of Community-Based Drinking Water Organizations," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1663-1675, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:9:p:1663-1675
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X11000301
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isham, Jonathan & Kahkonen, Satu, 2002. "Institutional Determinants of the Impact of Community-Based Water Services: Evidence from Sri Lanka and India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(3), pages 667-691, April.
    2. Ribot, Jesse C. & Agrawal, Arun & Larson, Anne M., 2006. "Recentralizing While Decentralizing: How National Governments Reappropriate Forest Resources," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 1864-1886, November.
    3. repec:wbk:wbpubs:14884 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Agrawal, Arun, 2001. "Common Property Institutions and Sustainable Governance of Resources," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 1649-1672, October.
    5. Kleemeier, Elizabeth, 2000. "The Impact of Participation on Sustainability: An Analysis of the Malawi Rural Piped Scheme Program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 929-944, May.
    6. Trond Vedeld, 2000. "Village politics: Heterogeneity, leadership and collective action," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(5), pages 105-134.
    7. R. Maria Saleth & Ariel Dinar, 2004. "The Institutional Economics of Water," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3443.
    8. Gibson, Clark C. & Andersson, Krister & Ostrom, The late Elinor & Shivakumar, Sujai, 2005. "The Samaritan's Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199278855.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Priyam Das, 2016. "Uncharted waters: Navigating new configurations for urban service delivery in India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(7), pages 1354-1373, July.
    2. Bourceret, Amélie & Amblard, Laurence & Mathias, Jean-Denis, 2022. "Adapting the governance of social–ecological systems to behavioural dynamics: An agent-based model for water quality management using the theory of planned behaviour," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    3. Kuzdas, Christopher & Wiek, Arnim & Warner, Benjamin & Vignola, Raffaele & Morataya, Ricardo, 2015. "Integrated and Participatory Analysis of Water Governance Regimes: The Case of the Costa Rican Dry Tropics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 254-268.
    4. Frempong, Raymond Boadi & Kitzmüller, Lucas & Stadelmann, David, 2021. "A micro-based approach to evaluate the effect of water supply on health in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    5. Kenrick W. Williams & Hsing-Sheng Tai, 2016. "A Multi-Tier Social-Ecological System Analysis of Protected Areas Co-Management in Belize," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-23, January.
    6. Koehler, Johanna & Thomson, Patrick & Hope, Robert, 2015. "Pump-Priming Payments for Sustainable Water Services in Rural Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 397-411.
    7. Julia Alexa Barde, 2014. "What Determines Access to Piped Water in Rural Areas?Evidence from Small-scale Supply Systems in Rural Brazil," Discussion Paper Series 30, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Dec 2014.
    8. Mulye Tadesse & Tafesse Matewos & Samuel Jilo Dira & Fekadu Israel Alambo & Tenaw Fentaw Dessie, 2025. "Fostering Community Ownership for Sustainable Social Innovations in Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Regions," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-19, April.
    9. Catherine Ragasa & Jennifer Golan, 2014. "The role of rural producer organizations for agricultural service provision in fragile states," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(5), pages 537-553, September.
    10. Fekadu Megersa Senbeta & Yang Shu, 2019. "Project Implementation Management Modalities and Their Implications on Sustainability of Water Services in Rural Areas in Ethiopia: Are Community-Managed Projects More Effective?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-19, March.
    11. Koniewski, Maciej & Krupnik, Seweryn & Skórska, Paulina, 2024. "Beyond the average effect of the innovation subsidies: Using case selection via matching to break impasse in delivering useful advice to policy makers," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    12. Calzada, Joan & Iranzo, Susana, 2021. "Can communal systems work? The effects of communal water provision on child health in Peru," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    13. Barde, Julia Alexa, 2017. "What Determines Access to Piped Water in Rural Areas? Evidence from Small-Scale Supply Systems in Rural Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 88-110.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Madrigal, Róger & Alpízar, Francisco & Schlüter, Achim, 2010. "Determinants of Performance of Drinking-Water Community Organizations: A Comparative Analysis of Case Studies in Rural Costa Rica," RFF Working Paper Series dp-10-03-efd, Resources for the Future.
    2. Madrigal, Roger & Alpizar, Francisco & Schluter, Achim, 2011. "Individual Perceptions and the Performance of Community-Based Drinking Water Organizations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-11-07-efd, Resources for the Future.
    3. Floriane Clement, 2010. "Analysing decentralised natural resource governance: proposition for a “politicised” institutional analysis and development framework," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 43(2), pages 129-156, June.
    4. repec:wbk:wbpubs:20203 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Mawutor, Samuel M. & Hajjar, Reem, 2024. "Empowerment and disempowerment in community-based natural resource management: Examining CREMA outcomes in Ghana," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Prakash Kashwan, 2016. "Integrating power in institutional analysis: A micro-foundation perspective," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(1), pages 5-26, January.
    7. Andersson, Krister, 2013. "Local Governance of Forests and the Role of External Organizations: Some Ties Matter More Than Others," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 226-237.
    8. Paudel, Jayash, 2018. "Community-Managed Forests, Household Fuelwood Use and Food Consumption," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 62-73.
    9. Cook, Nathan J. & Wright, Glenn D. & Andersson, Krister P., 2017. "Local Politics of Forest Governance: Why NGO Support Can Reduce Local Government Responsiveness," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 203-214.
    10. Shigute, Z., 2019. "Community participation and the quality of rural infrastructure in Ethiopia," ISS Working Papers - General Series 643, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    11. Paudel, Jayash, 2016. "Community-Managed Forests and Household Welfare: Empirical Evidence from Nepal," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235481, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Long, Hexing & de Jong, Wil & Yiwen, Zhang & Liu, Jinlong, 2021. "Institutional choices between private management and user group management during forest devolution: A case study of forest allocation in China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    13. Sun, Yan & Asante, Felix A. & Birner, Regina, 2010. "Opportunities and challenges of community-based rural drinking water supplies: An analysis of water and sanitation committees in Ghana," IFPRI discussion papers 1026, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Krister Andersson, 2008. "Motivation to Engage in Social Learning about Sustainability: An Institutional Analysis," CID Working Papers 26, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    15. Zemzem Shigute, 2022. "Community Participation and the Quality of Rural Infrastructure in Ethiopia," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 31(4), pages 355-383.
    16. Tai, Hsing-Sheng, 2007. "Development Through Conservation: An Institutional Analysis of Indigenous Community-Based Conservation in Taiwan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 1186-1203, July.
    17. Eduardo Araral, 2005. "Bureaucratic incentives, path dependence, and foreign aid: An empirical institutional analysis of irrigation in the Philippines," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 38(2), pages 131-157, September.
    18. Xu, Tuoyuan & Zhang, Xiaoxiao & Agrawal, Arun & Liu, Jinlong, 2020. "Decentralizing while centralizing: An explanation of China's collective forestry reform since the 1980s," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    19. Millner, Naomi & Peñagaricano, Irune & Fernandez, Maria & Snook, Laura K., 2020. "The politics of participation: Negotiating relationships through community forestry in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    20. Dhakal, Maheshwar & Masuda, Misa, 2009. "Local pricing system of forest products and its relations to equitable benefit sharing and livelihood improvement in the lowland community forestry program in Nepal," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 221-229, July.
    21. Frederike Klümper & Insa Theesfeld, 2017. "The Land–Water–Food Nexus: Expanding the Social–Ecological System Framework to Link Land and Water Governance," Resources, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-16, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:9:p:1663-1675. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.