Northern Ghana has been a pilot region for implementing drinking water programs.

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has acted as a key player in

constructing hand pumps and small-town water systems, as well as in designing

institutional frameworks for their delivery and management, which have been

subsequently up-scaled to national level. Water rights are neither uniform nor immune

to institutional drawbacks. The ethnographic study analyzes the history of water supply

in a rural settlement from the mid-1960s through to 2012, and outlines the evolution of

local law. It shows that water development is a non-progressive, multi-directional and

hegemonic process that is driven by institutional bricolage and rule making in external

and local political arenas.