Does Participation Lead to Ongoing Infrastructure Maintenance? Evidence from Caribbean Landslide Mitigation Projects

Abstract

Donor-funded infrastructure projects may focus on construction and neglect longer-term sustainability. Engaging local communities has been proposed as way of inducing ongoing maintenance by facilitating coordination and a sense of ownership, but there is little evidence on its effectiveness in practice. We analyse data from inspections of 103 landslide hazard mitigation drains in Saint Lucia several years after construction. We conclude that community participation at the beginning of the project, by accessing local knowledge, is associated with improved construction quality, but appears to have no impact on subsequent maintenance, suggesting that contractual provision for maintenance may be required.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the referees who provided useful comments that helped to substantially improve the paper. The community based landslide risk reduction programme in the communities used for this study was funded by the Government of Saint Lucia and The World Bank. The World Bank funded the post-construction survey which formed the basis for the research reported here, for which Ruben Leon managed and undertook the survey work in all the communities. An anonymised version of the dataset used in the analysis is available on request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The World Bank Group (Latin America and Caribbean Region) funded the post-construction survey of the 10 community drainage projects in 2013.