Rural water provision at the state-society interface in Latin America

Across Latin America, improved water access in rural areas has primarily been secured by residents themselves, bolstered by myriad state and nonstate, domestic and international, entities. In recent decades, the state has lent increasing attention to the rural sector. This article examines recent state interventions towards understanding the evolution of the state's role in rural water provision vis-a-vis community-based water service providers in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Recognizing the tensions inherent in a call for state engagement in rural water provision, we propose roles that directly engage the challenges facing community-based water management organizations, emphasizing state engagement with national and transnational water committee governance networks and state-society accountability mechanisms.