BOOK
Meeting the Water Reform Challenge
(2012)
Additional Information
Book Details
Abstract
Water policies around the world are in urgent need of reform. Despite improvements in some sectors and countries, progress on meeting national, regional and international goals for managing and securing access to water for all has been uneven. Rallying policymakers around a positive water reform agenda needs to be a high priority and calls for strong political commitment and leadership.
This report on Meeting the Water Reform Challenge brings together key insights from recent OECD work and identifies the priority areas where governments need to focus their reform efforts. It calls for governments to focus on getting the basics of water policy right. Sustainable financing, effective governance, and coherence between water and sectoral policies are the building blocks of successful reform.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover\r | Cover | ||
| Table of contents | 7 | ||
| Acronyms and abbreviations | 11 | ||
| Executive summary | 15 | ||
| Framing the challenges | 16 | ||
| Meeting the water financing challenge | 17 | ||
| Meeting the water governance challenge | 19 | ||
| Meeting the water coherence challenge | 21 | ||
| Chapter 1:\rFraming the water reform challenge | 25 | ||
| Introduction | 26 | ||
| Key water trends and projections | 27 | ||
| Changes in OECD water abstraction rates | 29 | ||
| Future global water demand is expected to increase significantly to 2050 | 30 | ||
| Increasing water stress | 31 | ||
| Groundwater exploitation is becoming unsustainable | 32 | ||
| The human and economic impact of weather-related disasters is increasing | 32 | ||
| Water quality is expected to deteriorate globally | 34 | ||
| Reaching the MDG goal for access to improved drinking water sources | 36 | ||
| The MDG goal for sanitation is a significant challenge | 38 | ||
| Emerging issues in water policy | 40 | ||
| Seeing water as an essential driver of green growth | 40 | ||
| Allocating enough water for healthy ecosystems | 42 | ||
| Ensuring sustainable financing of the water and sanitation services | 43 | ||
| Fostering greater coherence among water, energy, environment and food policies | 43 | ||
| Developing alternative sources of water | 44 | ||
| Filling information gaps | 45 | ||
| Designing reforms that are realistic and politically acceptable | 46 | ||
| Build a broad constituency | 47 | ||
| Explore a mix of policy options and build capacity | 47 | ||
| Factor in financial sustainability from the start | 47 | ||
| Manage the political process | 47 | ||
| Notes | 48 | ||
| References | 48 | ||
| Chapter 2:\rMeeting the water financing challenge | 51 | ||
| Introduction | 52 | ||
| What are the benefits from investing in water and sanitation? | 52 | ||
| Estimating the benefits from investing in water supply and sanitation | 53 | ||
| Economy-wide assessments of benefits of water quality improvements | 56 | ||
| How much investment is needed? | 58 | ||
| Closing the financing gap | 60 | ||
| Improving the efficiency of operations | 61 | ||
| Opting for different levels of service to reduce initial capital costs | 62 | ||
| Finance to close the gap: A combination of the 3Ts | 62 | ||
| Increasing revenues: Tariffs | 63 | ||
| Increasing revenues: Taxes | 65 | ||
| Increasing transfers (i.e. Official Development Assistance and philanthropic\rdonations) | 66 | ||
| Bridging the financing gap: Tapping repayable sources of funding | 67 | ||
| The role of the private sector to help mobilise financing | 72 | ||
| Beyond water and sanitation: Financing water resources management | 75 | ||
| A framework for financing water resources management | 76 | ||
| The benefits and beneficiaries of water resources management | 77 | ||
| Costing water resources management | 80 | ||
| Seeking cost savings in WRM | 81 | ||
| Who pays for what and how? | 83 | ||
| Thinking strategically about financing WRM | 86 | ||
| Moving forward on the water financing challenge | 87 | ||
| The need for strategic financial planning | 87 | ||
| A “Toolbox” to support financial planning | 91 | ||
| Taking a holistic approach | 92 | ||
| Notes | 92 | ||
| References | 93 | ||
| Chapter 3:\rMeeting the water governance challenge | 97 | ||
| Introduction | 98 | ||
| A multi-level governance approach for addressing complexity in the water sector | 99 | ||
| Rationale for a multi-level governance perspective | 99 | ||
| The multi-level governance approach to water policy | 100 | ||
| Observations from the institutional mapping of roles and responsibilities in the water sector | 104 | ||
| Institutional mapping at central government level | 104 | ||
| Institutional mapping at sub-national government level | 106 | ||
| Main conclusions on OECD countries’ institutional organisation of water policy | 108 | ||
| Challenges to co-ordinating water policies across ministries and between levels of government | 110 | ||
| Governance fragmentation at the metropolitan level | 114 | ||
| Multi-level Co-ordination of Water Policies | 116 | ||
| Co-ordinating water policy across ministries and public agencies | 118 | ||
| Co-ordinating water policies between levels of government | 120 | ||
| Co-ordinating water policies across sub-national actors | 122 | ||
| Moving forward on meeting the water governance challenge | 125 | ||
| References | 127 | ||
| Chapter 4:\rMeeting the water coherence challenge | 129 | ||
| Introduction | 130 | ||
| Framing the coherence challenges | 130 | ||
| Impacts of governance in the energy and agriculture sectors on water governance | 132 | ||
| Linkages between energy, water and the environment | 133 | ||
| Key water-energy linkages | 134 | ||
| Water for cooling thermoelectric power plants | 134 | ||
| Water impacts of hydropower and other renewable electricity | 135 | ||
| Water impacts of liquid fuels1 | 137 | ||
| Impacts of water treatment, distribution and use on energy demand | 138 | ||
| Coherence between water and energy policies: Policy objectives and technological options | 139 | ||
| Approaches to enhancing policy coherence | 141 | ||
| Exploiting win-wins | 141 | ||
| Avoiding conflicts | 141 | ||
| Managing trade-offs | 142 | ||
| Institutional gaps hindering policy coherence in water and energy | 142 | ||
| Moving forward on coherence between water and energy policies | 144 | ||
| Institutional re-organisation | 144 | ||
| Enhanced data collection and analysis | 144 | ||
| Co-ordinated planning | 145 | ||
| Public consultation | 146 | ||
| Programmes | 146 | ||
| Regulations | 146 | ||
| Operational management | 147 | ||
| Economic instruments | 147 | ||
| Linkages between agriculture, water and the environment | 147 | ||
| Key water-agriculture linkages | 148 | ||
| Water resources | 149 | ||
| Water quality | 150 | ||
| Water and energy | 151 | ||
| Droughts and floods | 152 | ||
| Water and ecosystems | 153 | ||
| Water and climate change | 153 | ||
| Coherence between agriculture and water policies: Key obstacles | 154 | ||
| Difficulties and failure to address the complexity and diversity of agriculture and water linkages | 154 | ||
| Differences in the spatial and temporal scales between water and agricultural policies | 155 | ||
| Incoherencies between agriculture and water policies | 156 | ||
| Inconsistencies and rigidities in the institutions governing the agricultural and water sectors. | 157 | ||
| Coherence between agriculture and water policies: Key benefits and risks | 159 | ||
| Moving forward on the water and agriculture coherence | 163 | ||
| Moving forward on the water, energy and agriculture coherence challenge | 166 | ||
| Notes | 167 | ||
| References | 168 | ||
| ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION\rAND DEVELOPMENT | 172 |