|||**Model 1**|||**Model 2**|||**Model **|**3**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Ft**||||||||||
|**acors**|**PR**|**95% CI**|**p-**<br>**value**|**PR**|**95% CI**|**p-**<br>**value**|**PR**|**95% CI**|<br>**p-**<br>**value**|
|Not dug well|||||||1.25|1.08–<br>1.44|0.003|
|Dugwell(ref)|||||||1.00|||
|Baseline/ref|033|0.27–||029|0.23–||024|0.19–||
|proportion|.|0.42||.|0.36||.|0.31||

Further, the model showed that improved water quality, proxied by absence of dug wells<sup>14</sup> also improved the likelihood of sustainability; however, the effect remained the same as that of socioeconomic conditions.

The quantitative evidence thus far reveals that project-induced community management of rural water supply is likely to be sustainable under conditions where the community members are involved in the proposal process, with a higher likelihood of sustainability where the village is more prosperous and where the water conditions are favorable. These results are reassuring but not entirely surprising. To gain more insight into mechanisms and channels of impact between participation and sustainability, we turn to our qualitative findings of the outlier cases.

# **Pockets of Effectiveness and Pockets of Failure—Qualitative Analysis of Channels of Impact from Participation to Sustainability**

To go beyond typical first-tier explanations of sustainable water provision<sup>15</sup> and to contextualize these locally, we explore micro-level dynamics driving outcomes. The stories from the case studies provided nuanced understanding of how communities dealt with the broader structural challenges of water delivery and at times found their own innovative solutions, thus producing different outcomes under the same project and central governance context (Brixi, Lust, and Woolcock 2015). They revealed how participation can work differently depending on local contexts. The results help us tailor solutions more adequately by matching project design and implementation processes to the varying contexts rather than blueprint thinking whereby processes are replicated in a more topdown manner for subprojects.

Data were collected in seven villages. Three were positive deviance cases<sup>16</sup> where resource-poor, remote, communities under difficult water conditions managed their water systems successfully for long periods of time, and four were negative deviance cases where water abundant or economically wealthier communities abandoned systems.

A team of two to four researchers spent a week in each village carrying out in-depth interviews, participant observation, and focus groups discussions (FGDs) with a variety of stakeholders.

> 14 In the model regressing water technologies with sustainability, the highest association was found with a _gravity system with a spring water source_ . A likely reason might be because the relatively simple technology requires less maintenance effort. _Dug wells_ were twice as _less likely_ to be associated with a sustainable village than other forms of technology, however, primarily because the water might be more prone to infrastructure problems such as pipe blockages. _Boreholes_ , despite the higher costs and maintenance requirements, _did not show any significant relationship_ with functionality. Thus, taking the presence of dug wells—as a proxy of water stress—into account in the model, we found that it did not affect the relationship between participation and sustainability which still came out to be positively associated.

> 15 For example, geographic conditions of water quality and availability or village socioeconomic conditions and financial capacity.

> 16 Built in PAMSIMAS 2008–2012 and recorded as fully functional every year 2014–2018, generating more than O&M costs and in places with presence of water pollution as per PODES data.

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