Does User Participation Lead to Sense of Ownership for Rural Water Systems? Evidence from Kenya

Despite broad acceptance of the idea that "sense of ownership" among users is critical to infrastructure sustainability in developing countries, little is known about what sense of ownership is, or its drivers. We present a novel measure of sense of ownership or piped water systems using empirical data collected from 1140 households in 50 rural Kenyan villages. This study establishes an empirical referent for households' sense of ownership. We find that sonic, but not all, types of participation enhance community members' sense of ownership for rural water projects. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.