Privatisation of urban water service provision: the Kenyan experiment

Water Policy ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. A. K'Akumu ◽  
P. O. Appida
Keyword(s):  
Service Provision ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Economic Viability ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Set Up

One of the services that have been poorly provided in the urban areas in Kenya is water and sanitation. There are many reasons, which can be attributed to poor provision of water and sanitation as undertaken by the local authorities in Kenya. The path to remedy the poor provision of water and sanitation has been charted in privatisation in the form of commercialisation. Commercialisation in Kenya was first implemented on an experimental basis in three urban areas: Nyeri, Eldoret and Nakuru. This involved formation of a publicly owned water company as an agent of the local authority. The companies formed as a result were set up and operated according to the provisions of the Companies Act chapter 486 of the Laws of Kenya. This paper looks at the genesis of privatisation of water services based on the contributions of GTZ, UWASAM and KFW to an experiment in formulating and implementing privatisation in the three urban areas. The outcome of the experiment is then compared to the current on-going exercise of water privatisation by local authorities. Privatisation of water and sanitation services is expected to solve the problem of poor and inadequate service provision that hitherto characterised urban areas. It would do this by achieving its goals of decentralisation and economic viability. However, the outcome of the experiment indicated that privatisation failed to achieve these two fundamental goals. For that matter, privatisation failed to meet its intended objectives of solving the woes of service provision in urban areas. A close examination of the current privatisation indicates that the operation has again failed to achieve its fundamental goals of decentralisation and economic viability. The failure of the current exercise in meeting the objectives of ridding the urban areas of water woes can therefore be predicted on this basis.

Advancing integrity in urban water and sanitation: WIGO report 2021

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Webb
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Regulatory Bodies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Global Population

As the proportion of the global population living in urban areas increases, major challenges in providing safe drinking water and sanitation services need to be overcome, particularly in marginalised communities and informal settlements where services are already deficient. Strategies to provide water and sanitation are often undermined by corruption and integrity failures in the management of public resources, ‘petty corruption’ at the interface between individuals and institutions, and issues of inequitable and discriminatory planning and pricing. In the Water Integrity Global Outlook (WIGO 2021), WIN outlines successful strategies, tools and processes to reduce corruption and improve integrity by governments, utilities, the private sector, regulatory bodies, the media, NGOs and ultimately citizens, to drive improvements in the provision of reliable water and sanitation services.

Being a Programme Authority: Is it Worthwhile?

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meryl Aldridge ◽  
Christopher J. Brotherton
Keyword(s):  
Inner City ◽  
Health Authority ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Control Structures ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Set Up ◽  
City Policy

ABSTRACTNottingham is one of 23 local authorities designated as ‘programme authorities’ under the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978. Between 1983 and 1985 the authors carried out research into the formulation of inner city policy, its application to the Radford area in particular and the opinions of residents there about its impact. Interviews with a wide range of those involved with policy including local authority officers and members and representatives of the police, the health authority and regional Department of the Environment (DoE) revealed considerable institutional and political barriers to a joint inner city strategy in a shire district, even where the same party holds political control. Structures set up to liaise are cordial but clumsy, slow and very much removed from daily service delivery. As elsewhere, the local authorities are critical of lack of central government commitment to this part of the Urban Programme, but nevertheless work well with regional DoE. Paradoxically, however, despite their criticisms of a lack of central funds and of inappropriate spatial and other parameters, the local authority and health authority respondents are anxious for the Programme to continue as it provides both the resources and the justification for innovatory and redistributive projects which would otherwise have been financially and politically impossible.

scholarly journals Financing water and sanitation services: two types of funds for facing investment challenges in Brazil

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-31
Author(s):  
Vitor Carvalho Queiroz ◽  
◽  
Nilo De Oliveira Nascimento ◽  
Matheus Valle de Carvalho e Oliveira ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Supply ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
State Level ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
Global South ◽  
The State ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Sustainable Investment

In the countries of the Global South, investments in the water and sanitation sector have historically not met the overall needs. The poor are generally the most affected. The creation of funds to support universalization of water supply and sewerage services may represent an important instrument as a sustainable investment strategy. This study displays the features and characteristics of two distinct fund models at the state level in Brazil. It indicates that despite challenges these funds offer opportunities for meeting the main objective of the water and sanitation policy in Brazil, the universalization of service provision. It suggests also that the Brazilian experience might be adapted to other contexts.

scholarly journals A comprehensive framework for analyzing co-production of urban water and sanitation services in the Global South

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (8) ◽  
pp. 886-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Faldi ◽  
Federica Natalia Rosati ◽  
Luisa Moretto ◽  
Jacques Teller
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Comprehensive Framework

Change in Local Authority Services for the Elderly in England, 1979–88

1991 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 1741-1757 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Hoggart ◽  
T A Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Socioeconomic Conditions ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Party Control ◽  
Fiscal Conditions ◽  
Policy Variation ◽  
Service Need

In most studies of service provision in local authorities it is assumed that councils respond directly to service need and fiscal conditions. In this paper it is argued that this is a fallacy as responses are conditioned by the filter of political party control. With a focus on nonmetropolitan counties and metropolitan boroughs and districts, it is shown that relationships between policy variation and socioeconomic conditions vary in Conservative-dominated and Labour-dominated councils. In particular, Conservative councils respond more notably to fiscal resources, whereas Labour authorities are more responsive to service need. Examination of changes in provision show that these patterns have persisted through the 1980s.

Measuring the effectiveness of multi-sector approaches to service provision

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-196
Author(s):  
K. Caplan ◽  
D. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Service Provision ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Strategic Partnerships ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Business Partners ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The World ◽  
Successful Approach ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Partnership Approach

Sustainable development is a global imperative, and strategic partnerships involving business, government and civil society may present a successful approach for the development of communities around the world. Business Partners for Development (BPD) is an informal network of partners that seeks to demonstrate that partnerships among these three sectors can achieve more at the local level than any of the groups acting individually. The Water and Sanitation Cluster of the BPD has been working with eight partnership projects around the world to determine the efficacy of the partnership approach in providing water and sanitation to the poor. Measuring the effectiveness of these partnerships, however, proves challenging. Different interested and affected groups will measure the success of the initiative along different sets of criteria. Partnership elicits qualitative values such as trust, responsiveness and flexibility that are more likely to be “measured” by gut reactions rather than by more mechanical means. However, the creation and maintenance of a carefully selected set of indicators for a specific partnership project should enhance relations by increasing clarity and building stronger communication channels. The paper below provides considerations for the creation of partnership indicators.

A new paradigm for low-cost urban water supplies and sanitation in developing countries

Water Policy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Mara ◽  
Graham Alabaster
Keyword(s):  
Water Supply ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Urban Water Supply ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
Sanitation Systems ◽  
Water Supply And Sanitation

To achieve the Millennium Development Goals for urban water supply and sanitation ∼300,000 and ∼400,000 people will have to be provided with an adequate water supply and adequate sanitation, respectively, every day during 2001–2015. The provision of urban water supply and sanitation services for these numbers of people necessitates action not only on an unprecedented scale, but also in a radically new way as “more of the same” is unlikely to achieve these goals. A “new paradigm” is proposed for low-cost urban water supply and sanitation, as follows: water supply and sanitation provision in urban areas and large villages should be to groups of households, not to individual households. Groups of households would form (even be required to form, or pay more if they do not) water and sanitation cooperatives. There would be standpipe and yard-tap cooperatives served by community-managed sanitation blocks, on-site sanitation systems or condominial sewerage, depending on space availability and costs and, for non-poor households, in-house multiple-tap cooperatives served by condominial sewerage or, in low-density areas, by septic tanks with on-site effluent disposal. Very poor households (those unable to afford to form standpipe cooperatives) would be served by community-managed standpipes and sanitation blocks.

Business partners for development-KwaZulu-Natal pilot project, South Africa: a new approach to the delivery of sustainable water and sanitation services in poor peri-urban areas

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 197-202
Author(s):  
P. Rousseau ◽  
E. Tranchant
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Business Partners ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
The World

An innovative tri-sector partnership has been formed in two peri-urban areas in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which aims to provide sustainable water and sanitation services to these previously disadvantaged communities. This forms part of the world-wide Business Partners for Development (BPD) programme initiated by the World Bank to bring together the diverse resources, expertise and perspectives of three distinct sectors: business sector, public sector and civil society, in particular Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO's). The project focus includes infrastructure upgrading, water loss management, community involvement and capacity building, education and awareness on water conservation, health and hygiene, and customer management. The establishment of a common research framework examining impacts and outcomes and an international sharing and learning programme will, it is hoped, lead ultimately to better and replicable practices.

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