WATER GOVERNANCE IN CITIES:
AN OECD PERSPECTIVE
Oriana Romano, PhD Policy Analyst, OECD Water Governance Programme 8th European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns Bilbao, 27 April 2016
• What are the challenges?
• Is cities’ governance well-equipped to handle these challenges?
• What should local and national governments do?
Water Governance in cities
Policy questions
A Survey across 48 Cities
The analytical framework
Source : OECD (2016) Water Governance in Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris
Water is key to sustainable cities
Current levels of service delivery and water security in
OECD and emerging economies should not be
taken for granted
Simultaneous action is needed on :
Infrastructure, institutions and
information
SDG 11 “ Making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”
SDG 6 “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and
sanitation for all”
What are the challenges?
Source : OECD (2016) Water Governance in Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris
Are cities’ governance structures well-
equipped to handle the challenges?
Source : OECD (2016) Water Governance in Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris
Roles and responsibilities in urban water management are still high fragmented national-subnational coordination
Urban water management concerns several scales multi-level functional approach to water functions
Multi-level governance gaps:
Capacity and Funding gaps
Lack of knowledge on
water 40%
Poor planning 40%
Difficulties in doing ex ante
evaluation 44%
Difficulties in doing monitoring
and ex post evaluation
50%
Lack of staff and managerial capacities
65% Golden rule when
borrowing from commercial
sources 23%
Limited decentralisation of fiscal power and
taxation 29%
Difficulties in mobilising private sector financial
contribution 33%
Lack of financial guarantees for the
city to borrow 38%
Lack of multi-annual strategic plans and multi-annual budgets
38%
Difficulties in collecting tariffs
and charges from water 46%
Weak prioritisation of
investment 48%
Affordability constraints
requiring tariff adjustments 54%
Difficulties in raising tariffs for water services
69%
Funding Capacity
Source : OECD (2016) Water Governance in Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris
Multi-level governance gaps:
Information and accountability gaps
Lack of data on the water balance
and quality 27%
Absence or incomplete water
users'registry 33%
Lack of independent data
38%
Inconsistencies in available data
38%
Data dispersed across agencies
52%
Incomplete and irregular data
collection 56%
Over technical information
56%
lack of publicly available data on
drinking water quality 23%
Lack of accounting control through regular financial
audits 23%
Lack of competitive
procurement process
27%
Weak judicial system for conflict
resolutioni 31%
Lack of benchmarking for
service providers'performa
nce 44%
Lack of publicly available data on
economic and financial
performance 46%
Limited monitoring 46%
Weak stakeholder engagement
48%
Limited information
sharing across local authorities
60%
Accountability Information
Source : OECD (2016) Water Governance in Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris
Policy Responses : The 3Ps co-ordination framework
Source : OECD (2016) Water Governance in Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris
Policy complementarities
• Rural- Urban partnerships
• Metropolitan governance
Stakeholder engagement
Next steps : Implementation in Cities of the
OECD Principles on Water Governance
Source: OECD “OECD Principles on Water Governance”, OECD, Paris, available at: www.oecd.org/gov/regionalpolicy/ OECD-
Principles-on-Water-Governance-brochure.pdf.