En el laberinto de la historia: El porqué de la violencia

Data to build the cases and mini cases was collected during 2004 –2007, using a variety of methods including document review, unstructured and semi-structured interviews, focus-group discussions and non-participant observation. The formal governance structure, inter-organizational relationships and prescribed organizational procedures were understood by reviewing government documents. Key informants were identified through a snowball sampling process and pertinent information collected through unstructured and semi-structured interviews. Key informants included State government officers (both administrative, and technical, such as engineers), known authors/ academics working on drinking water issues in the State and staff of reputed State-level NGOs involved in the drinking water sector. This captured additional details of organizational and systemic functioning, including unwritten norms and practices, historical trajectories in domestic water provision in the State, and undocumented information on the reform process. Annexure III contains the people interviewed and Annexure IV the lists of documents used.

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For the mini-cases, records or documents pertaining to the project were sourced where possible, and key informants at the district and village level were interviewed. These included elected VP members (men and women), Secretaries or administrators of VPs, State government officers posted at district levels (administrative and technical

personnel), and staff of non-governmental organizations in the study villages listed in Table 2.4. At the village/ hamlet levels, data was additionally collected through non- participant observation of some Panchayat and user-group meetings, focus-group discussion, participatory mapping of water sources by users and a small random survey in each village. The survey was to elicit brief information about the

respondents’ water collection practices and water sources used before and after the new projects were installed, involvement in the institutional processes through which the new system was developed, and their resource contributions (money, labor or other).

Data was collected for this research between May 2004 and August 2007. Preliminary visits to each State were made in mid-2004, pertinent documents collected and some interviews conducted with State officials and other key informants, to identify locations for research and develop the field research design. Field research was conducted over a number of subsequent fieldwork trips lasting from 2-6 weeks.

Collection of relevant information from published articles and government documents, and occasionally from short interactions with key informants176 was continuous during the process of data analysis and preparation of the report.

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The research in India was conducted from a primary base location at the Institute of Rural Management in Anand, Gujarat. The frequent seminars, workshops and other consultative occasions provided numerous opportunities for interaction with important key informants from government, NGOs and the academic firmament of the three study States.

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5.

FRAMEWORK AND METHODS OF ANALYSIS.

Four methods were used to analyze the data and elicit answers to the case study questions (section 4.3). The first was diagramming and graphical analysis to answer questions of ‘what’ changed and by ‘how much’ after the reforms. The second was content analyses of documents and interviews to find answers to the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions. Third, simple mathematical operations such as averaging, finding

percentage changes and comparison of means were applied to the quantitative data obtained for the indicators in the mini-cases, to enable comparative analysis across projects, States and types of reform. Lastly, a simple scoring method was applied at the end, using the mean changes on the indicators for effectiveness and participation respectively to develop an overall score of effectiveness and participation for each case. This enabled comparison of effectiveness and participation for the two types of reformed systems (cases) in each State, and the comparison of cases across the three States.

To assess (and understand) the efficacy of the reformed arrangements, the extent of decentralization was graphically represented in organizational diagrams, that

represented the ensemble of organizations involved and their relationships in the pre- reform, reformed and observed (emergent) governance system in each case, in a common format.177 Organizational actors involved were categorized as the Central government, State government, Local government, community based organizations (CBOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private entities, and the

distribution of functions and activities among them was mapped using a list generated

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The organizations involved in any configuration – the GoI prescribed design, and the pre-reform, reformed and emergent (observed) structures – were arrayed horizontally by type and vertically by level (national, State, district, taluka and village), along with their functions/ activities/ roles.

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at the preliminary fieldwork stage. This list of functions, the constituent activities (or task-responsibilities) and the relative importance of each178 (functional score) was developed through an iterative discussion with key resource persons in all three States during the initial visit and is given in Table 2.6 (Devolution Score Sheet). The basic list, of tasks/ steps that is typically involved in water provision, which was used to develop these ‘scores’ is appended in Annexure V.

Table 2.6

Devolution Score Sheet: Relative importance of functions, activities and resources in the development of water supply projects

KINDS OF RESPONSIBILITY SPECIFIC TASKS FUNCTIONAL

SCORE

1 Policy Framework Policy framework, & legislation, rules 3

Program design 4

Monitoring and evaluation 3

1A Organizing Community/ User/

Beneficiary Groups

Community organizing 3

2 Planning Identifying need, deciding on project:

Planning

3

Design decisions – size, location, coverage, etc

4

Choice of technology 3

3 Resources Funds 4

(Technical) Design expertise 3

Project Management expertise 3

4 Construction Process Tendering/ contracting 2

Procuring materials & equipment 2

Recruiting and managing labor 2

Supervising construction, monitoring progress

2

Managing funds, payments 2

5 System Administration Fixing/ revising tariffs 3

Collecting tariffs 3

Operation and maintenance 4

6 Ownership Ownership 3

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The ‘relative importance’ of functions/ resources combines perceptions (of the key resource persons) about the importance of each item in the process, and the extent of authority and responsibility it endows on the agent who performs the function.

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Degrees of decentralization in each case could then be derived as the total score for each category of organizations, both vertically as well as horizontally. The earmarking of a percentage of memberships in decision-making bodies for women is the statutory mechanism used to ensure their participation. Therefore by calculating the total the extent of inclusiveness in the reformed arrangements could be assessed. The shift in the distribution of functions/ activities/ roles is represented diagrammatically in the organizational charts by fading out previous arrangements, and graphically by charting the scores for pre-reform, reformed and emergent configurations in each case. Spaces created for women are also indicated in the organizational diagrams and the total provisions as an overall percentage for the case.

To assess the effectiveness of the reformed arrangements in each case, mean values of change in the five indicators in each case were derived from those observed in the respective mini-cases. Extent of change in the indicators, as a percentage of the pre- reform level was first compared across the mini-cases (within-case comparisons) to assess if there was a pattern across water-supply projects, before deriving mean values. The same method was used to derive extent of inclusion in each case. However, cross-case comparisons required first an aggregation of the indicators for each parameter, and then aggregation across the two parameters, effectiveness and inclusion. For this aggregation, a scoring method was used which is described below, along with the rationales used.

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5.1. EFFECTIVENESS AND INCLUSION:AMETHOD FOR AGGREGATED