Gouvernance hybride, participation et accès à l'eau potable. Le cas des associations d'usagers de l'eau (AUE) au Burkina Faso

Institutional reforms that have been implemented since the 1980s in developing countries under aid regime have strongly impacted water service policies. To thoroughly investigate such an issue, we focus on Burkina Faso, an innovative country from this perspective. We base our analysis on the concept of hybrid governance which allows the capture of complex embeddedness of different levels of decision-taking. The way that the neoliberal criteria spread at the international level can be observed through the way national sector-based policies are elaborated and through the impact on territories (urban, semi urban and rural) with frontiers that are sometimes difficult to identify. Moreover, although the empowerment principle is emphasized in such reforms, its implementation appears to be complex in a context of decentralization which goes hand in hand with new interactions between actors. We illustrate this complexity with a major organizational innovation in Burkina Faso, the Water Users' Association (WUA).