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How representatives of community-based water organisations navigate gaps in Colombia’s national drinking water co-production strategy

Katharina Lindt
Brandenburgische Technische Universitaet, Cottbus, Germany; katharina.lindt@b-tu.de

Bibiana Royero Benavides
Universidad de Cundinamarca, Fusagasugá, Colombia; pilarbenavides1979@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Community-based water provision in Colombia’s rural areas represents a form of collective resource supply that has historically developed as a countermovement to state fragility and remains the countryside’s only alternative to organised water supply. The Colombian state has legally recognised these water communities to meet constitutional and international commitments to universal drinking water access. However, integration occurs through a control-oriented approach, and is accompanied by administrative demands that most community-based providers cannot meet, which leaves them in a persistent informal status. Findings show that co-production practices reproduce governance fragilities and undermine the very social values the water communities are assumed to embody, even as state institutions depend on their work. The implemented co-production model not only requires constant informal negotiation but also fosters clientelism, corruption, socially harmful practices, and conflicts that cannot be resolved within existing structures. Based on qualitative case studies of seven community-based water providers, this article examines how volunteer representatives of these water communities navigate these contradictions, applying improvised strategies to individually sustain functionality. Meanwhile, these community-based water providers form wider networks and try to shape the public discourse around water co-production in order to achieve inclusion in the policy design process and improve collective support structures.

KEYWORDS: Community-based water supply, rural water supply, drinking water co-production, Colombia