Regulating and Enabling the Direct Providers

Abstract

Government has the responsibility to ensure that citizens, particularly the poor, can access potable water in order to ensure that the merit good benefits of this vital service are available to all. This is known as the Universal Service Obligation (USO) or Community Service Obligation, whereby monopoly suppliers have a specified duty to deliver equitable access to services. However, for the reasons described in earlier chapters, many governments have not been able to deliver this USO through their own direct providers. The New Public Management (NPM) approach of splitting the indirect provider responsibilities — that is, ‘ensuring access’ — from that of the direct provider — ‘delivering access’ — provides government with the opportunity to take a longer-term view. Government can then focus upon overall objectives in a way that has the potential to limit short-term political and producer interests.