The boundaries and limits of community management: Lessons from the water sector in Ghana

Community management, a central part of community development, has gained wide acceptance among service intermediaries as a result of the failure of the top-down approach to community development. Governmental policy instruments therefore aim at a bottom-up approach in basic service delivery such as health care, water supply and sanitation without adequate critique of the circumstances. Operationally, the extent to which community management can be inserted into development strategies has remained elusive with mixed and often costly results. This paper critically examines community management and suggests some recommendations to help service intermediaries in the application of community management in communities larger than rural villages.