Empowering Palestinian Community Water Management Capacity: Understanding the Intersection of Community Cultural, Political, Social, and Natural Capitals

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) call for a reduction by half of the estimated more than 1.5 billion people still lacking access to potable water by 2015. As this date approaches, there is increased interest in developing capacity at the community level to supply potable water. Water supply is one of the most contentious issues in the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This article will use the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) and the community capitals framework (CCF) to frame efforts to by a consortium of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international donors to develop Palestinian village-level drinking water management capacity within the context of a regional water framework. Our study compares two villages within this context. Our finding of dramatically different outcomes indicates that community capacity development efforts are highly conditional on existing stocks of natural, political and cultural capital.