Holvoet Nathalie, Dewachter Sara, Molenaers Nadia
Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Lange St. Annastraat 7, Antwerpen, 2000, Belgium.
Environ Manage. 2016 Nov;58(5):780-796. doi: 10.1007/s00267-016-0760-9. Epub 2016 Sep 9.
Many national water policies propagate community-based participatory approaches to overcome weaknesses in supply-driven rural water provision, operation, and maintenance. Citizen involvement is thought to stimulate bottom-up accountability and broaden the information base, which may enrich design and implementation processes and foster improved water accessibility and sustainability. Practices on the ground, however, are embedded in socio-political realities which mediate possible beneficial effects of participatory approaches. This paper builds on full social network data collected in a Ugandan village to study the social and political reality of two distinct levels of participation, i.e. local information sharing among citizens and a more active appeal to fellow citizens to improve water services. We use Logistic Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure to explore what type of actor and network traits influence information sharing and whether the same factors are in play in the demand for action to remedy water-related problems. Whereas social aspects (social support relations) and homophily (using the same water source, the same gender) play an important role in information sharing, it is the educational level, in particular, of the villager who is called upon that is important when villagers demand action. Our findings also demonstrate that those most in need of safe water do not mobilize their information sharing ties to demand for action. This indicates that building local water policies and practice exclusively on locally existing demand for action may fail to capture the needs of the most deprived citizens.
许多国家的水政策倡导基于社区的参与式方法，以克服供应驱动型农村供水、运营和维护方面的弱点。人们认为公民参与能够激发自下而上的问责制并拓宽信息基础，这可能丰富设计和实施过程，并促进改善水的可及性和可持续性。然而，实地实践嵌入于社会政治现实之中，这些现实会调节参与式方法可能产生的有益效果。本文基于在乌干达一个村庄收集的完整社会网络数据，研究两种不同参与水平的社会和政治现实，即公民之间的本地信息共享以及更积极地呼吁同胞改善水服务。我们使用逻辑回归二次分配程序来探究何种类型的行为者和网络特征会影响信息共享，以及在要求采取行动解决与水相关问题时，相同这些相同因素是否发挥作用。虽然社会层面（社会支持关系）和同质性（使用相同水源、相同性别）在信息共享中发挥重要作用，但在村民要求采取行动时，尤其是被呼吁的村民的教育水平才是重要因素。我们的研究结果还表明，最需要安全水的人不会利用他们的信息共享关系来要求采取行动。这表明仅基于当地现有的行动需求来制定地方水政策和实践可能无法满足最贫困公民的需求。
