Jornadas sobre Agua y Servicios urbanos en Africa - Barcelone, 20 November 2008

1. Jornadas sobre Agua y Servicios urbanos en Africa - Barcelone, 20 November 2008 ‘Hybrid systems’ Alternative ways of providing water in Sub-Saharan African cities Sylvy JAGLIN ENPC - Latts (UMR 8134) Jaglin@enpc.fr

2. Outline • Lack of access to networked water supply by the urban poor • Misleading controversies • Key drivers of change • New imaginative soft path

3. Persistent failure to achieve universal access • SSA is late on the MDGs • Access to improved water sources: 56% • True numbers are underestimated • Urbanization of poverty: increasing proportion of users without adequate water supplies live in urban areas but the role of water (and sanitation) in poverty reduction is not well defined and fully understood.

4. Facts and factors • Technical factors • Prohibitive connection charges and tariffs • High technology standards • Political factors • Weak state support • Non-inclusive decision making processes Poor households rely on non-regulated water markets, paying ten to twenty times as much per unit volume as the urban pipe-connected households.

5. Misleading controversies 1‘State failure’ versus ‘market failure’ • Much of the debate has focused on the importance of ownership in influencing the performance of water utilities with heated controversies about the relative merits of the public and private sectors; • No empirical evidence: reviews of the performance of water utilities indicate that ownership does not predict the efficiency of water service providers; • By over-emphasizing the choice between public and private, the controversy has focused on state versus market failure and thus partly missed the point by diverting attention from the institutional obstacles, which explain why both public and private operators have failed to expand water supply to the poor.

6. Misleading controversies 2‘Free’ water • The debate around free water has generated two misunderstandings: • valuation of water as a natural resource ≠ valuation of water supply • Cost recovery principle ≠ user-pays principle • Free water = free access to a limited or unlimited quantity of water, for which someone has to pay : other users and/or taxpayers. • While over-emphasizing the issue of pricing for natural resources, this debate has diverted attention from another crucial issue: what is the cost attached to the free access of the poor? Which combination of tariffs and taxes is locally affordable and legitimate?

7. Misleading controversies 3Community is beautiful Community water supply is sometimes invoked as an alternative to private-sector provision for less profitable parts of the population. But the notion is ambiguous and relies on questionable assumptions: • Community ownership would automatically give rise to desired changes in management outcomes; • Communities are coherent and relatively equitable social structures; • Communities have the capacity or can acquire the capacity (technical knowledge and skills, financial resources, social capital) to solve all water-supply related issues; • Communities can sustain alternative water delivery systems.

8. Misleading controversies 4 Governance versus regulation failure 1) Governance is defined generically as any mode of coordination through which stakeholders articulate their interests and mediate their differences for the sake of collective and cooperative action 2) Regulation is defined as the range of political, legal, administrative, organizational processes and rules through which public actors frame other actors’ actions. Water management does not effectively take into account the needs of poor households: is this a governance failure (coordination default) or a regulation failure (failure of governments to monitor the water multi-stakeholders system in order to achieve general objectives like universal access)?

9. What have we learnt? • Not only have the reforms been expensive to design and implement, they have often been unsuccessful as well: we need a pragmatic and flexible approach. • No single system’s performance is systematically superior: arrangements should rely on institutional bricolage and negotiation rather than blueprint. • Social objectives must be accommodated in the strategic outlook of providers and water supply should be assessed against the broader requirements of a public service.

10. What have we learnt? 4) Large centralised systems cannot account for rapid shifts : trapped in a technological trajectory, they cannot easily absorb innovation. 5) Success stories in SSA are generally demand-driven: poor and middle-class households get a service because they are ready to pay for it and local businesses are ready to invest to provide it.

11. Key drivers of change 1) Socio-economic changes : urban population growth; population profile change and diversity of demands; extended coverage in a growing number of (large and small) urban settlements; 2) Technological changes : new techniques (ICT, PPM), green infrastructure technologies and methods (integrated resource management, water efficiency), small-scale systems to account for rapid shifts in population location and demand; 3) Environmental stress : climate change is likely to make urban environment more unstable and to compound the competition for water use; 4) Political changes : decentralisation; consumer awareness; grassroots organisations and claims.

12. New imaginative soft path 1 • Changes of scale and degrees of de/centralization • We need to realistically reconsider our infrastructural model and paradigm: for many Sub-Saharan African urban areas, the conventional large centralized water networks are unsuitable to improve water access in the short run. • Decentralized systems (independent network providers, small-scale water suppliers and informal vendors) are more flexible to adapt to urban growth, migrations, poverty, changing land uses… This resilience is a positive externality. • Competition • Small private providers operate in far more competitive markets than do large private utility operators. • This encourages innovation but requires a strong capacity of governments and regulators to monitor water services.

13. New imaginative soft path 2 • Differentiation of basic services • It can be implemented through service levels and tariffs. • Under certain circumstances, it can be a pragmatic move towards accommodating social and spatial disparities in urban areas. • Demand management and public involvement • Increasing water productivity and efficiency should rely on existing coping strategies of the poor rather than on blueprint derived from abstract and normative principles. • Public involvement should rely on embedded practices rather than on romanticized community-based organisations.

14. ‘Hybrid systems’Neither ‘One size for all’ nor dualism • Considering alternative systems does not mean that conventional ones will be abandoned: ‘hybrid systems’ will have to abandon the traditional ‘one size for all’ of the public service approach without nurturing dualism. • There is risks attached to these ‘hybrid systems’: they could formalize intra-urban inequalities and lock deprived communities in substandard ad-hoc supply systems. Nevertheless, a reasonable approach can be found, i.e. one that respects diversity yet remains cognizant of the need for urban cohesion. • The scope of regulation and public oversight should not be limited to networked provision but rather include the diverse array of water provision systems actually operating in urban environments.

15. Challenges The main challenge is political: how can public authorities develop their capacities to regulate the outcomes of these complex ‘hybrid systems’ in line with the social objectives of water supply? How can aid agencies facilitate this process?

16. Thank you.