Dearth of collective efficacy: Towards explaining truncated municipal water service delivery in Kabwe, Central Zambia

Abstract

This paper draws on empirical work from New Mpima, a rapidly developing high-cost residential suburb in Kabwe – Central Zambia. Although residential plots in New Mpima were allocated to prospective developers in the early 1990s, the local municipality failed to service the suburb with water throughout the 1990s. When municipal water was subsequently provided, it followed a truncated approach, which excluded the less contiguously developed areas from water supply. These events passed without any cohesive community voice on water provision. Based on in-depth interviews with residential property developers in the suburb and other relevant stakeholders, the paper uses the concept of collective efficacy to explain the failure of collective action for municipal water in New Mpima. The paper concludes that critical mass, individual coproduction and fear contributed to the weakening of collective efficacy and the failure to mobilise the community in New Mpima.