Co-Developing Strategies to Promote Inclusive Water Governance in Malawi

We are seeking a highly motivated individual to carry out PhD research in the field of water governance, social science and geography. This prestigious Hydro Nation studentship, funded by the Scottish Government, will provide a platform to build an interdisciplinary research career in the field of international water governance.

Access to clean water is a basic human right. However, worldwide millions of people still lack access to a safe, reliable and sustainable supply of water. Malawi ranks 173 out of 188 countries on the Human Development Index, with 83% of the population living in rural areas, over 70% of urban inhabitants living in informal settlements, and a widening gap between the richest and poorest residents. Poor water governance has frequently been highlighted in Malawi as the main cause of the population’s limited access to clean drinking water, and researchers have called for urgent policy action to address this (e.g. Adams, 2017). Stakeholder engagement remains a critical component of effective and inclusive water governance. However, often the engagement falls short of what is needed by policy makers and more evidence is needed of ‘what works best’ (OECD 2015). This has been evident in Malawi, with continuing challenges in sector coordination at central level, and lack of consistency of approach at district level, compounded by donor driven responses to water access and management. For tackling intractable challenges such as meeting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 6.1 (by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all), new ways of engagement are needed across all sectors of society. In this project, novel interdisciplinary engagement mechanisms will be trialled to explore how the voices of Malawian citizens can be better integrated into water governance decision making and planning.

The overarching aim of this interdisciplinary PhD is to explore how novel methods of stakeholder engagement can enable more inclusive water governance in Malawi. The objectives are to:
1. Identify the key multi-level actors with a stake in water governance in Malawi and explore their current roles, values and interactions with other actors;
2. Explore future scenarios of safe water access in Malawi with stakeholders to understand current lessons learnt and opportunities for scale up;
3. Co-create an advocacy theory of change framework for water governance in Malawi;
4. Co-design and trial novel methods to improve citizen interest and participation in water governance in Malawi.

To achieve these objectives, during three periods of fieldwork in Malawi, the PhD student will: 1) Use in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in Malawi’s water sector (including professionals in national water agencies, the water boards, non-governmental organisations, businesses and civil society) to explore current governance and institutional structures in Malawi’s water sector, strengths & weaknesses and opportunities for more inclusive and transparent water governance via social network analysis; 2) Using an updated methodology from Price et al. (2018), bring together the key stakeholders identified in (1) to undertake a future scenarios mapping analysis of safe water access in Malawi; 3) Work with stakeholders to develop an advocacy theory of change framework; 4) Work with stakeholders to co-design methods to enhance engagement at various stages of the framework. These will develop through discussion and may include participatory methods (e.g. theatre, storytelling, photovoice, mapping, citizen juries, games and song), citizen-led water quality monitoring and citizen advisory boards/ accountability monitoring, to help to highlight the everyday realities of safe water access for those most remote (in terms of wealth or distance) from water governance decision making.