The Implementation Gap, Part II

...continued from Part I....

(citations by Golooba-Mutebi, 2012 unless otherwise noted)

Golooba-Mutebi goes on to list many examples of poor implementation efforts in Uganda and Rwanda, which however can likely be seen as universal problems that occur in many environments with similar conditions. One of these is that both recently expanded institutions and private actors simply lack “the capacity, the experience and the organisational sophistication” for their jobs. District officials, as in Masaka district, are hopelessly overstretched and mismanaged to the point where they frequently give up on carrying out their jobs properly, resulting in a failure to carry out repairs on damaged infrastructure and a lack of supervision of other actors, with cascading effects.

Due lack of supervision, government, community and private actors lack the incentive to likewise carry out their function appropriately. In the profit-oriented private sector this is particularly problematic, where contractors would “cheat on parts and carry out incomplete installations, whereas in other cases, they use second-hand rather than the expected new parts.” Also, contracts are often given out to firms without the necessary qualifications as there is no proper evaluation process for bids. In many water user committees, the absence of penalties means water users lie that they cannot afford paying any contributions, committee bank accounts are non-existent, and volunteers don’t carry out their functions as no one checks whether they do. Government officials often do not keep to water quality testing guidelines and only perform quality checks when there is very strong evidence that a source is contaminated.

Local leaders who are made responsible for certain enforcement tasks frequently face an obvious conflict of interests since they are democratically elected, and so “have not been able consistently to enforce bye-laws because they fear antagonising potential voters […] who may in turn vote them out of office.” User committee members are often also elected, and face a similar situation since “those who have attempted to enforce regulations face hostility from their neighbours.” While Rwanda has taken steps to resolve these conflicts of interest, the situation is common in Uganda.

Irrelevance of Politics?

Though these are all problems that are only partially resolved, Golooba-Mutebi carries on to describe how in Nyamagabe district, Rwanda, water supply management has improved significantly more than in Masaka district, Uganda. The reasons he holds responsible for these improvements are just as interesting and ‘non-ideological’ as the ones he says are at the root of the problems: “the generally high quality provision is the outcome of the all-important co-ordination and oversight functions of local authorities, which they perform with ample commitment and diligence. The local authorities’ commitment itself stems from active oversight and intervention from the central state that imposes strict regular reporting requirements. No actor transacts their business in ways that render the delivery of safe water impossible or unnecessarily difficult.” Furthermore, he praises Rwanda “removing user committees operating on the basis of voluntarism and associated problems from the equation,” to replace them with representatives that are supervised, receive compensation and have the time to carry out their roles adequately.

Golooba-Mutebi paints an uncomfortable but realistic picture on the role of politics and ideology in water supply management. While I feel many researchers partially recognise these problems, I have not seen them addressed (or perhaps admitted?) so clearly by anyone else. To resolve these issues, according to him, would mean that the political debate, sadly, is not a debate relevant to most users of domestic water. It is detached, and although relevant morally and in relation to the environment, it is not a debate that brings ordinary people closer to access of safe and plentiful water.

General attention, investment and aid must turn to closing enforcement gaps, balancing responsibilities and encouraging cooperation and democratisation. Water supply should not be framed as a political problem but as a problem of execution, from which the entire political debate should be isolated, and that improved execution would result in projects from all sorts of interest groups (private company, government institution, NGO, academics) achieving much more success.

Does this, however, mean that measures preventing inequalities are shifted to a lesser position within domestic water supply management? Interestingly, in his 2005 paper Pieter van der Zaag reflects that “in my own country, the Netherlands, they say that democracy was like a by-product of our water management institutions, the waterschappen. Water management taught us the importance of inclusive and democratic decision-processes.” Thus, will dysfunctional water management always prevent inclusive and democratic IWRM values from succeeding, while at the same time functional water management will automatically lead to more fairness and stakeholder representation? Similarities can even be drawn to Michael Foucault’s influential description of the ‘disciplinary society’, where he argues modern society functions through ordinary citizens contributing to governance by simply being capable of observing other members of society carrying out their assigned functions.  

Conclusion

So, after all these posts and after coming full circle it is time to share some concluding thoughts on the topic of Water, Politics and Africa. From my first post it was clear to me that the problems of domestic water supply management continue to be very severe, with population continually rising and resources being ever more stretched. I then covered the debate on water supply management in the way it is most often framed by nearly everyone involved: “the market, the government, or the community?” This debate is unresolved, and both researchers and organisations continually bring out new ‘mixes’ of the three, including IWRM. But Golooba-Mutebi takes a step back, and in his eye-opening paper suggests that it is not this ‘mix’ that is wrong, but that the implementation gap between ideology and reality is not being addressed effectively. I must agree with his point of view, as it simply seems most realistic and logical. It explains perfectly well why similar projects succeed in one area but completely fail in another, and explains what Kate Bayliss had to say on privatisation, covered in earlier posts.

Source

But are things going to change? Do researchers, mostly from the West, have an interest in the political debate on water management being replaced by an implementation debate where, since the latter relies much more on knowledge of local culture and social organisation rather than an academic knowledge of economics, political systems, climate change and international organisations? Probably not. Do international corporations, NGOs and career politicians want to be told that it is not them with their investments, ideas and projects that are making a difference, but the low-level officials who make sure money ends up where it is supposed to? Probably not. Established systems are good at sustaining themselves, which I’m sure everyone can agree is not always a good thing, but hopefully this blog has for you, as it has for me, stimulated some thought and got you to critically think about some of the established ways of doing things, which although probably won’t change the world is a pretty good achievement for one little blog.

Thank you for reading and all the best,

Arnold