Abstract
The purpose of the study is to determine conditions under which participation by the community in the provision of the social services which the community needs improves access to those services. Access to services such as sanitation, health care and education remains inadequate for much of the world's population, including disadvantaged communities in the United States. No consensus exists about how to improve access to services. Many policy-makers, like the World Bank, have embraced the view that access to services would improve if users of services participated in providing those services, and more generally that local participation is necessary to improve the performance of all development projects. The hypothesis that users of services have more information about their needs and a greater interest in a good outcome than does a remote central organization is reasonable. However, local control can also lead to control by a few powerful people for their own benefit, a community may lack technical knowledge and may be unable to exploit economies of scale. In this study, we implement three organizational interventions designed to provide access to safe drinking water in Bangladesh. In each type of intervention, the authority to make decisions regarding the provision of safe water will be allocated differently to test the hypothesis that community participation improves outcomes.