Community participation in urban sanitation - Experiences in northeastern Brazil

This article explores how well community participation explains variations in the performance of sanitation projects in Brazilian cities. Case Studies of condominial sewers in Recife and Natal, Brazil, reveal a variety of activities that we categorize in to four forms of participation: mobilizing, decision making, construction, and maintenance. Mobilizing and decision making were associated with performance in the cases we examined. Our results suggest that participation form as well as continuity influence are important. The hypothesis that increased participation enhances performance is an oversimplification for conclonvinial sewers.