Devolution and Urban Water and Sanitation Service Delivery in Mutare, Zimbabwe: A Structured Evidence Review of Governance, Financing, Infrastructure and Accountability

Access to water and sanitation are important to test whether devolved governance provides the citizens’ right to basic needs. Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitution set participation, accountability and resource-sharing objectives for subnational government. Mutare has appropriate literature and audit reports to support analysis of the performance of devolved water and sanitation services. The objective of this structured evidence review is to synthesise the available evidence on the post-2013 devolution of Zimbabwe to understand urban water and sanitation services in Mutare with regards to governance, finance, infrastructure, operations, public participation, accountability and equity.Targeted, web-indexed searches, were conducted on scholarly publishers, university repositories, legal sources, Mutare City documents, the Office of the Auditor General, and public documents on 22 October 2026. The log preserved 39 queries in five batches, with an additional 22 source verifications in three batches. Sixteen documents were selected and curated for evidence inventory and thematic synthesis. An exportable record corpus and full record-level screening were not available, therefore, the article is presented as a structured evidence review and does not claim to be an exhaustive coverage of the sources or to fully comply with PRISMA 2020. The evidence points more to a conditional than to a uniform interpretation of devolution. There are reports that the Dangamvura pipeline was complete and commissioned. However, the Auditor-General's report on the Mutare City Council also reported high water losses, the absence of bulk water meters and partial work on the Gimboki sewer plant. Municipal budget documents described funding gaps and proposed water and sewer works. However, plans and budget entries did not indicate completion of the works or improvement in household conditions. There is more evidence on governance and some water investments than on citywide performance on sanitation, trends in water quality, affordability and the effects of devolution. Devolution creates constitutional authority and financing for local infrastructure, but improvements in water services depend on stable and sufficient financing, adequate public sector staff, maintenance, accountability and participation of the public. There is not enough evidence to make a citywide causal estimate of the effects of devolution. Methodological issues are reported and addressed openly; numeric selection stages are not reported in the absence of record-level data.