Abstract
This paper explores the different urban governance models proposed by multilateral aid organizations in accessing water through informal supply systems, to assess the rationale and the guiding principles at the basis of their different ‘governance approaches’. There can be no doubt that most developing countries are now experiencing a rapid and unprecedented urban growth, which is bringing about a rising demand for urban services, especially those concerning water supply. To cope with this pressing issue, the response of multilateral aid organizations—such as the World Bank, UN-HABITAT and the European Union––has been represented by the design and implementation of different urban governance and management systems, called to support an equitable and efficient access to urban water supply services. This paper focuses on the different urban governance approaches through which multilateral donors support informal networks and small scale providers to provide water supply in cities of developing countries. It highlights how these different urban governance approaches address the overall issues of poverty reduction whilst in reality, in certain cases, they also aim to affect and regulate domestic public policies of Third World countries. In particular, it argues that the governance model proposed––and imposed––by the World Bank continues to belong to a neo-liberal policy agenda, which considers water and urban services as commodities to be managed through widespread competition and market mechanisms. On the contrary, UN-HABITAT, and the European Union to a certain extent, highlight the need for an urban governance system that promotes the ownership of development strategies by local communities and that rests on the principles of inclusiveness and equity.
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Notes
Without entering in the broad debate regarding the notion of ‘civil society’ (Lewis, 2000; Mitlin, 1999; Stren, 2000, unpublished manuscript, for some relevant references), it is sufficient to say that civil society is considered here in a wider sense such as ‘community-based and grass-root organizations, NGOs, trade unions, religious organizations and business, both formal and informal, alongside the various branches of governmental agencies, both national and local’ (Amis et al., 2001: 4–5).
The European Commission is considered here as a multilateral aid organization as the body that manages European Union assistance for development. In fact, according to Degnbol-Martinussen and Engberg-Pedersen (2003: 95). ‘The EU’s aid is also considered multilateral, since it is channeled via an international (although regionally limited) organization’.
According to Leftwich (1994: 370, ‘[t]he first official appearance of the contemporary notion of good governance came in the 1989 World Bank report on Africa, which argued that ‘Underlying the litany of Africa’s development problems is a crisis of governance’, by which was meant “the exercise of political power to manage a notion’s affairs” (World Bank, 1898: 60).’
Leftwich (1994: 371) argues that good governance includes three main normative levels: the systemic one (‘the concept of governance is wider than that of government’ and it ‘refers to a system of political and socio-economic relations’), the political one (referred to a multi-party representative democracy) and the administrative one (‘an efficient, independent, accountable and open public service’).
Structural adjustment has mainly entailed privatization of state assets, drastic cuts in the number of public sector jobs, the removal of subsidies in food, energy, transport and shelter, the introduction of cost-recoverable prices and of new taxes, and the compression of government social expenditure.
According to Degnbol-Martinussen and Engberg-Pedersen (2003: 118), ‘the World Bank has become by far the largest international development organization in regard to the volume of loans, staff, expertise and organization’, whilst ‘EU aid, combined with the bilateral and multilateral aid of the EU member states, makes “Europe” the dominant aid donor in the world’ (ibid: 125).
This is reflected in the current division of European development cooperation in two main General Directorates: DG Development engaged with development policies and strategies and DG EuropeAid dealing with the implementation activities.
See Baron’s article (2005) for a detailed description of these four archetypes.
Water Utility Partnership for Capacity Building (WUP), Africa, 2003, Better water and sanitation for the urban poor, WUP, Ivory Coast.
This Fund has been created with the specific objective to develop norms, standards and management toolkits for the water and sanitation sector and with a specific focus on pro-poor strategic interventions (UN-HABITAT, 2004).
The ‘conventional agency model’ is identified in: ‘conventional formal agencies (public, private or cooperative) providing good quality provision for sanitation and piped water to each building, within broader systems for the good management of water going into the system and waste-water coming out of the system’. (UN-HABITAT, 2003a : 233).
In the Vigoda’s metaphor (2002), the lady represents the ‘public administration’ while the two hats are associated with two different kinds of relationship between citizens, government and public administration: ‘responsiveness’ or ‘collaboration’. With this metaphor, Vigoda (2002: 530) distinguishes between two competing options: ‘(1) There are two substantially separated faces of government and public administration (two ladies), one that adopts the idea of responsiveness and one that favors collaboration; (2) the discipline of governance and public administration is more coherent (only one lady) than we might think, and at most it changes colors over time (two hats).’
These Guidelines have been developed in consultation with the Expert Group on Urban Development from Member States and the Urban Development Reference Group of the European Commission. They are currently an internal consultation document.
The ACP-EU Water Facility is a financial instrument to support activities and programs in the water sector, in ACP States. In particular, ‘the objective of the ACP-UE Water Facility is to ensure the creation of water and sanitation infrastructure and to improve Integrated Water Resource Management practices in ACP countries (European Commission, 2004: 4). This initiative has started in 2004 within the institution of the European Union Water Initiative (EUWI).
The three components of the co-financing mechanism of the ACP-EU Water Facility are: 1. Improving the water management and governance in ACP states; 2. Co-financing water and sanitation infrastructure; 3. Civil society initiatives for smaller scale operations in poor urban and rural areas.
The European programs URBS are divided in geographical areas: Urb-Al for Latin America, Asia-Urbs for Asia and Med-Urbs for the Mediterranean African countries.
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Special thanks to Fabio Grazi and Marni Wood for their valued support and comments.
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Moretto, L. Urban governance and multilateral aid organizations: The case of informal water supply systems. Rev Int Org 2, 345–370 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-006-9006-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-006-9006-6
Keywords
- Urban governance
- Multilateral aid organizations
- Informal networks and providers
- Water supply
- Evaluation models