Institutional Coordination Challenges in Service Delivery the Case of Water Supply in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

This paper presents challenges related to institutional coordination of actors across systems of municipal services delivery, using the case of water supply in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Towards the end of the 20th century, municipal services delivery in the country and other developing countries underwent myriads of institutional reforms, which led to increased participation of private and community-based actors, along with the conventional public actors. Such dynamisms influenced the coordination processes and the rules that determined how such actors related and pursued their respective roles. Despite a number of studies in this subject, a knowledge gap still existed on the challenges that affected coordination of multiple actors. The paper therefore discusses the factors against effective coordination of actors in municipal services delivery, and recommends how such factors could be overcome. The instruments of data collection included key informant interviews, focus group discussions, household interviews and document analysis. The study found out that the challenges that hindered effective institutional coordination in municipal services delivery included multiplicity of competing actors; insufficient responsiveness of actors; and lack of clear collaboration mechanisms for actors of different institutions. As such, poorly enforced institutional reforms contribute to poor accountability in the coordination processes, and subsequently poor performance of the water supply sub-sector. Although studies have indicated the importance of water vending in many cities of developing countries, this study did not involve it, as the researcher considered water vending to be a wide sub-system that requires more time and attention as a separate entity.