Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows:
In recent decades, democratic decentralization in rural water governance has been widely advocated across developing nations as a vital mechanism to enhance public accountability and operational efficiency. By transferring resource allocation responsibilities from distant, centralized bureaucratic agencies to localized village councils, international policy frameworks aimed to empower marginalized residents and ensure equitable resource distribution. However, empirical assessments across multiple jurisdictions demonstrate that local governance structures frequently suffer from elite capture, wherein entrenched socio-economic elites disproportionately dominate decision-making forums and divert infrastructural investments toward privileged hamlets. Furthermore, localized councils often lack the requisite technical expertise, administrative capacity, and sustained fiscal transfers necessary to maintain complex hydraulic infrastructure over extended operational horizons. Consequently, while decentralization successfully democratizes the rhetoric of resource management, without strong institutional oversight, targeted capacity building, and guaranteed state assistance, it inadvertently risks deepening existing socio-economic inequalities rather than ameliorating them. Achieving genuine equity and long-term sustainability in rural water provision therefore requires a recalibrated governance paradigm that pairs local participatory mechanisms with active state regulation and institutional support.
Which of the following best reflects the central theme intended by the author of the passage?
- Decentralized water governance can only achieve true sustainability and equity if local participation is complemented by active state support and institutional oversight.Cevap
- BDemocratic decentralization in rural water governance is an inherently flawed concept that inevitably deepens socio-economic disparities.
- CRural water governance struggles primarily because private sector investment has been restricted by bureaucratic regulatory frameworks.
- DThe primary impediment to rural water access is the total failure of village councils to establish hydraulic infrastructure.