Managing delivery of sanitation infrastructures for poor communities : Decentralizing without penalizing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how lessons learnt from a case study of a sanitation project undertaken in periurban Vietnam can indicate a more sustainable scale of operations by decentralization. In context of high urbanization in South‐East Asia, periurban areas suffer increasing environmental pressure and lack access to environmental infrastructures. As the government of Vietnam has not yet defined its supply programme for sanitation, central governmental supply and operation is questioned by various small non‐governmental organizations (NGO) that could successfully provide community‐managed projects. Design/methodology/approach – A pilot wastewater management community project by an international NGO serves as a case study for capacity‐analysis at the local level. Using interviews with experts and user‐oriented focus groups, both the village and household capacities to participate in the project are analyzed. Findings – The research identifies the skills and expertise necessary for the management of a sustainable sanitation service. Observing local skills and resulting outputs of the community‐managed system provides comprehensive insight about the highest needs of local support and clarifies coordination priorities between stakeholders. Research limitations/implications – This paper is limited to one country and context, while findings can be useful in similar contexts it cannot be generally applied. Practical implications – The Lai Xa project demonstrates that operation decentralization could be highly profitable for the authorities compared to the traditional approach of government supply and maintenance. Local communities could, with proper training, manage and maintain a simple sanitation system. The sustainability of these community services finally depends on proper coordination by water and sanitation authorities providing specialized technical and managerial support. Originality/value – There is a dearth of literature on project case studies in the NGO world and this paper helps to broaden the understanding of the interface between project management and aid project delivery by providing useful insights on how the project uses a complex system of capacities at various levels.