"L'eau c'est la vie": Seeking Sustainable Water Access and Community Participation in Rural Cameroon

Abstract: In the rural water scheme projects across sub-Saharan Africa, the participatory Community Based Management model has become the norm. Through initial financing by oustide funders, the goal is for communities to independently take on the financing of the operation and maintenance (O&M) of the improved water schemes, thereby ensuring sustainability and functionality of the pumps. Evidence has been gathering, however that this model, combining ideals of collective action with the logics of commodification, has been frequently failing, one in three hand pumps in Africa are out of function, and communities struggle to meet the financing needs of O&M in infrastructures which perpetuate isolation. This, however, does not lie fully in the fault of the communities, or implementation, but also in theoretical downfalls of the CBM. Looking at a community-based rural project in the Tikar region of Central Cameroon as well, this research reveals the limits of CBM to achieving sustainable water access, as well as reveal new angles and paradigms to pursue.