Thesis
Understanding water payment outcomes at communal water kiosks in Malawi: a causal loop approach
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2025
- Thesis identifier
- T17222
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201980455
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Decentralised water supply systems present a viable solution to the provision of improved water services in developing countries. However, their operational sustainability is hindered by inconsistent demand, representing an inconsistent willingness to pay. Using communal water kiosks, as a decentralised improved water provision model, this research explains why water payments are inconsistent at kiosks. The aim of the study is to develop a model that explains payment behaviours at communal water kiosks. Understanding payment behaviours is critical for investment decision making on decentralised water provision. This study employs an Explanation Analytic Building Technique using a deductive-inductive approach. First, propositions are derived from causal loop diagrams (CLDs). These propositions are tested, amended and extended using data from 45 semi-structured interviews with users, NGOs and policymakers, and project documents from two comparative water projects in Malawi. The process resulted in other loops and resulting propositions inductively added to the final model. Confidence was built in the CLDs through four group sessions with selected members of NGOs and government. The final model is made up of various collective action-induced structures that drive outcomes. These structures are, trust in the community organisation with funds, trust amongst households that others will reciprocate payments, sense of ownership, conflicts between community organisation members and users on funds, interventions by funders and coping strategies that users employ when faced with a changing water service. This research makes several theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions. From a theoretical perspective, the research contributes to the rural drinking water management field by extending the relationship between water payments and water service level, and development of a payment behaviour model that can help to explain payment behaviours at any decentralised shared improved water service provision model in rural Africa. Methodological contributions are made by combining the Explanation Building Analytic technique and CLDs for theory building and testing. Empirical contributions are made by employing cases in Malawi, where the involvement of policymakers in the confidence-building process facilitated learning and appreciation of systems thinking. The outputs from this model have wider theoretical and policy decision making implications in decentralised water provision in rural Africa.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Morse, Tracy
- Howick, Susan
- Resource Type
- DOI
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PDF of thesis T17222 | 2025-03-20 | Public | Download |