Water Governance in Cities: an OECD perspective Oriana Romano, OECD Water Governance Programme

Analytical framework for assessing water governance in cities

• Survey across 48 cities (OECD and non-OECD countries)

• Fact-based and perception based indicators

Source : OECD, 2015 forthcoming, Water Governance in OECD Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris

Keywords associated with "water management in cities”

Source : OECD, 2015 forthcoming, Water Governance in OECD Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris

Factors triggering changes in water governance

Source : OECD, 2015 forthcoming, Water Governance in OECD Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris

Capacity challenges at sub-national level

Financial capacities

Technical capacities

Human capacities

Funding gap Which obstacles hinder the financial sustainability of water

management in your city?

Capacity gap Which capacity challenges hinder the performance of water

management in your city?

Source : OECD, 2015 forthcoming, Water Governance in OECD Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris

The “3 Ps” coordination framework

Cities complex

interactions

People

Places Policies

PEOPLE Multiplicity of non-governmental actors with a stake in urban water governance • Service providers (main counterparts of city departments ( 79%) • Civil society and Business (not frequent interaction) • Irrigators and their association ( rare interactions)

Focus on Stakeholder engagement

• Building trust and ownership • Securing the willingness to pay for water services • Raising awareness on current and future water challenges • Ensuring the accountability of city managers and service providers to end users and citizens • Managing conflicts on water allocation • Ensuring the political acceptability of different ownership models • Setting convergent objectives across policy areas.

Source : OECD, 2015 forthcoming, Water Governance in OECD Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris

PLACES

• 75% of surveyed cities reckon water quality and 73% flood control as the major issues generating interdependencies between cities and surrounding areas • Cities coordinate with rural areas and other municipalities: 46% of cities implemented inter-municipal co-ordination mechanisms

Urban-rural interdependences

Focus on Rural- Urban partnerships

• A positive two-way interaction between rural and urban areas should be promoted to build synergies, manage trade-offs and foster complementarities across places and policies.

• Rural-urban partnerships can help integrate water management

between cities and their hinterland

Source : OECD, 2015 forthcoming, Water Governance in OECD Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris

POLICIES • Land use and spatial planning (81%), Energy (77%) and territorial development (71%) mainly influence water challenges in surveyed cities • Surveyed cities coordinate across sectors through planning, but also through contracts (energy, agriculture) coordination groups (territorial development, environment)

Focus on policy complementarities

• Managing conflicts on water allocation • Efficiently allocating resources (e.g. for alternative use of

water as in the energy sector); • Increasing capacity (e.g. by combining management of

multiple sectors – waste, water, energy)

Top priorities to cope with future water challenges

Source : OECD, 2015 forthcoming, Water Governance in OECD Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris

THANK YOU oriana.romano@oecd.org

WWW.OECD.ORG/GOV/WATER