Intersecting social-capital and perceived-efficacy perspectives to explain underperformance in community-based monitoring

Abstract

While community-based monitoring is becoming increasingly commonplace, evidence as to its functioning remains inconsistent. Based on Ugandan village network and survey data, this article studies community-based monitoring from a social-capital and perceived-efficacy perspective. From a social-capital perspective, the prospects for community-based monitoring look promising as there is a high social-capital stock and an efficient information-sharing network galvanizing information for a few key individuals. The dominant efficacy profiles are also encouraging as there is an abundance of ‘followers’ (with high belief in collective capabilities) and some ‘leaders’ for collective action (with high belief in individual and collective capabilities). And yet, few community-based monitoring activities are undertaken. Our article shows that only the intersection of both theoretical lenses explains the underperformance in community-based monitoring, as those actors who are central in the information-sharing network do not have a ‘leadership’ efficacy profile while those who are ‘leaders’ are not central in the village information network.