Delivering pro-poor water and sanitation services: The technical and political challenges in Malawi and Zambia

Meeting Millennium Development Goals on water and sanitation services in developing countries are fraught with difficulties, as can be seen most clearly from the experiences of Malawi and Zambia, two of the world’s poorest countries that have committed to meeting these goals. The challenges are not only technical, requiring programmatic or engineering solutions, but are also and most importantly political, because solutions will most often cause a rearrangement of the peculiar forms of power relations that have emerged within institutional and political environments of the two countries. The challenges include weak state support for water and sanitation provision, unreliable and contested indicators of coverage, poor sectoral co-ordination, and fragmented donor efforts. This field note examines these challenges in greater detail to cast new light as well as draw attention to possible solutions that can be implemented.