Stephen Jones

BA/MEng Civil and Environmental Engineering (Cambridge)
MSc Practising Sustainable Development (Royal Holloway)

Improving local level governance to meet the Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation: the case of WaterAid in Mali

Supervisors: Dr Vandana Desai, Dr Alex Loftus, Dr Mary Dengler
Funding: Economic and Social Research Council - Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE)
Non-academic partner: WaterAid

Email: s.d.jones@rhul.ac.uk

My research investigates how different governance arrangements influence the ability of the poor to access water and sanitation services, in the context of WaterAid’s Local Millennium Development Goal Initiative (LMDGI) in Mali.
 
The project is positioned at the intersection of two key debates: the role of governance reform in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and the relationship between water and social power.  In practical terms, my work seeks to inform how international organisations such as WaterAid can better support local actors to provide sustainable and equitable water and sanitation services in Mali, in the country’s context of ongoing processes of government decentralisation. More broadly, I seek to contribute to debates about the interrelationship between water and social power, as noted most prominently in the 2006 Human Development Report ‘Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis’.

My research so far has highlighted some key issues in Mali, such as ensuring functional sustainability of water systems (instead of handpumps being left broken and unused) and the challenge of developing flexible financing arrangements which enable access for the poor. My main fieldwork will take place in Mali in 2011. 

Publications

Jones, S. (2010) Participation as citizenship or payment? A case study of rural drinking water governance in Mali [Submitted to Water Alternatives, under review]

Other academic activities

I am a postgraduate representative of the Developing Areas Research Group (DARG) of the Royal Geographical Society, and am currently organising a postgraduate workshop on “Sharing Fieldwork Experiences” on 22-23 April 2010 at University College, London (please contact me or see the DARG website for more details and to register).

I am currently planning a one-day workshop for postgraduates researching water and sanitation issues, to be held in London later in 2010. Please contact me if you are interested in being part of this.

I contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching on international development, quantitative methods, and qualitative methods.

Engineering and other work

I continue to be engaged with the role of engineering in international development in my role of trustee of the charity Engineers Without Borders UK (EWB-UK), an organisation that removes barriers to development through engineering, by providing opportunities for young people to learn about technology's role in tackling poverty.