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Chapter 1 Diversity and Collective Action J ust off the main road that cuts through the slum area behind Kampala ’s main hospital lies the local council zone (LC1) of East Nsooba.1 An ethnically mixed neighborhood, it is set at the base of a steep hillside with small, closely spaced houses stretching down the incline and across the swampy valley floor. The houses are simple, with concrete floors and walls and zinc roofs. Few have windows or electricity . None has indoor plumbing. But the biggest hardship for the area’s residents comes not from the plainness of their houses or the absence of amenities like electric lights and indoor toilets, but from rainy season flooding, which transforms the neighborhood’s unpaved streets into rivers of mud, submerges houses in filth, and leaves putrid standing water that breeds cholera, malaria, and other diseases. Drainage channels designed to carry away the excess rainwater snake throughout the area, but the government has not maintained them for years, and they are too choked with garbage and debris to be of any use. So when the rains come, the floodwaters rise. To the north of East Nsooba lies Kisalosalo, an area less prone to flooding but more troubled by crime. Break-ins occur almost every night, and some thefts are accompanied by violence. People feel insecure . The Ugandan government used to sponsor and equip local defense units (LDUs) to patrol neighborhoods like Kisalosalo. But government support for the LDUs ceased in 2002 when they were incorporated into the formal police system; since then, Kampala’s slum areas have been overtaken by crime and violence. Fredrick Ssalongo has been the chairman of East Nsooba’s local council since 1987, when Uganda’s system of decentralized administration was initiated. Geoffrey Kashaija has served in the same capacity in Kisalosalo since 1991.2 Both men describe their deep frustration at the unwillingness of the central and local governments to provide basic ser1 vices in their areas. They also describe their disappointment at the inability of members of their communities to work together to help solve some of their areas’ problems. A few years back, for example, the Kampala City Council had arranged for a private company to pick up trash in poor neighborhoods, but the trucks stopped coming to East Nsooba because only a handful of the people there were willing to pay the fees. Even without regular garbage collection, the area’s flooding problems might be reduced if residents heeded Chairman Ssalongo’s calls to clean the channels of debris periodically and to refrain from throwing their trash in the drains. But these efforts, too, have failed. In Kisalosalo, Chairman Kasaijja’s attempts to set up community patrols to deal with the area’s crime problem have been similarly unsuccessful. Although everyone in the neighborhood agrees that crime is a critical issue, only a relative handful of residents have been willing to participate in the nightly patrols, and most have been reluctant to contribute funds to remunerate those who have. The hardships faced by the residents of East Nsooba and Kisalosalo are like those confronted by many people living in impoverished urban areas and villages around the world. Largely abandoned by their governments , these local communities are left to fend for themselves to provide basic public services like sanitation, flood protection, and security. Often they fail. This is because the services in question are what economists call “public goods” that can be consumed and enjoyed by everyone in the community irrespective of whether they contribute to their provision. As Chairmen Ssalongo and Kashaija have learned, this feature of public goods creates strong incentives for people to attempt to “free-ride” on the contributions of others.3 Residents of East Nsooba calculate that if they lie low while others do the dirty work of extracting the foul-smelling trash from the drainage channels or pay the fees for the private haulage company, they can reap the benefits of less flooding while avoiding unpleasant work and keeping their money. Residents of Kisalosalo similarly figure that they can enjoy the benefits of reduced crime without contributing to providing it. The problem, of course, is that if everyone makes the same calculation, then the garbage collection, drainage channel maintenance, and public safety will never be provided . The powerful individual incentives to shirk undermine the collective action necessary for providing these goods and thus reduce everybody’s well-being.4 Given the enormous social costs of such collective action...

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