Paper short abstract:

The main objectives of this chapter are to understand how and why institutions arrangements under the NCWSP appear differently from actual policy design.What practices do water actors engage in to navigate through challenges encountered from the pressure of institutional and technological change

Paper long abstract:

The Water Sector Reform in Ghana, National Community Water and Sanitation Programme (NCWSP) seek to ensure access and sustainable management of the water facilities.

Implementations, however, have not been in accordance with desired expectations. This study argues that mismatch between local social and institutional context and principles guiding the NCWSP are the reasons for the differences between policy and actual practices. To resolve the conflicts -that is to reduce the tensions arising as result of the mismatch; local water engages in different practices to find ways around challenges in implementing policies.

In this paper, we use insights from translation to explain the processes of translation of the NCWSP and implementation. Finding in this paper shows that implementing actors are, more likely to change institutional arrangements for managing the water systems. If faced with the following; inadequacy of institutional capacity, access to information, and knowledge of the programme, leadership support and commitment, and ambiguities in policies and programme. Consequently leading to practices and implementation in contrast with institutional arrangements provided in the NCWSP. Using six communities in Central, Ashanti and Northern Regions of Ghana an in-depth study is made to explore the processes of institutional change and how that impact on users access to water and sustainability of small town water systems. By this, the study will be contributing to developing a systematic explanation and convincing arguments which enable us to understand why actual implementation differ and relevant multisectoral approaches and practices towards navigating through challenges faced in implementing the NCWSP.