Solving Rural Water Exclusion: Challenges and Limits to Co-Management in Costa Rica

Abstract

Co-management has been promoted as a solution to expanding rural water access. In Central America, community water associations provide water service to 25% of the population, but poor water quality continues to leave many residents at risk of waterborne illness. In Costa Rica, dominant prescriptions for addressing these shortcomings include improvements to the institutional framework and policy reform. In this article, we evaluate the role of institutional arrangements, community involvement, and human capital in ASADA (Administrative Associations for Aqueducts and Sewers, by Spanish acronym) performance. We argue that while national community water management programs can be effective in expanding rural water access, there are limits to the indiscriminate implementation of co-management to address rural/urban water disparity. More specifically, we find that community-level factors impact ASADA performance, and thus need to be considered in policy decisions about whether co-management itself is necessarily the most appropriate approach.