Beyond Infrastructure: A Capability-Conversion Diagnostic Framework for Rural Water Access Inequality in Morocco

Rural water access in developing countries remains deeply unequal, even among communes with comparable infrastructure. This paradox motivates a shift from infrastructure-centered analysis toward a framework that explicitly accounts for governance and local conversion factors. We develop a Capability-Conversion Diagnostic Framework, grounded in Sen’s Capability Approach, that decomposes water access variance into three components: measurable infrastructure, provincial governance context, and commune-level unmeasured conversion factors. Applied to 1324 rural communes from Morocco’s 2024 General Census (RGPH 2024), the framework combines k-means capability segmentation (k=3, selected via a composite validation criterion), cross-validated infrastructure-to-water prediction using OLS with engineered features (RCV2=0.274, out-of-fold), conversion residual extraction, and spatial decomposition. The central finding is a three-way variance partition: infrastructure explains 27.4%, provincial context 34.1%, and commune-level unmeasured factors 38.5%—the latter representing an upper bound that includes omitted variables and measurement noise alongside conversion factors. Theil decomposition confirms that 89.9% of water access inequality occurs within capability tiers, consistent with Sen’s emphasis on conversion factors. A six-archetype policy matrix classifies communes into differentiated intervention strategies: 19.9% require comprehensive multi-sector transformation, 10.0% need governance reform despite adequate infrastructure, and 20.0% need targeted bottleneck interventions. The framework offers planners a diagnostic tool that identifies not only where infrastructure is lacking, but where it fails to deliver outcomes and what complementary interventions are needed.