Edward Bourque has experience in domestic urban planning, international WASH research and projects, and water sector knowledge management. He discusses WASH governance, including the political, economic, and social frameworks that determine access to WASH services across international, national, and local scales. Effective WASH governance requires coordination across levels of government, capacity building, and political will to improve affordability, service quality, accountability, and access to WASH services. Measuring WASH governance performance can help identify issues and ways to strengthen frameworks to sustainably deliver WASH services.

1. WATER, SANITATION, AND
HYGIENE (WASH)
GOVERNANCE:
NOTES ON THEORY AND PRACTICE
Edward Bourque, PhD
18 October, 2016
@ UNESCO-IHE

2. MY ACADEMIC AND POLICY BACKGROUND
-A THUMBNAIL SKETCH
 Domestic urban /environmental planner to international water,
sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) PhD and researcher.
 Extensive field research/contextual understanding of Tanzania’s WASH
landscape (PhD, World Bank research, etc.).
 USAID and foundation WASH proposal development experience-
Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Vietnam.
 USAID and World Bank water sector best practices, knowledge
management, and WASH sustainability research support.
 MIT IDEAS Global Challenge Reviewer/Mentor

3. WHAT IS WASH GOVERNANCE
The political, institutional,
economic, and social framework
that effectively defines and
determines access to WASH
services.

4. WASH GOVERNANCE- SCALES AND
LINKAGES
 Enabling Environment- Political, Social, and Economic
 Sector Wide Coordination and Cooperation
 Horizontal
 Vertical
 Local-level
 Multiple Scales
 International
 Regional
 National
 Basin-scale
 Local – Rural and Urban settings

5. WASH SERVICE DELIVERY – MAJOR
CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES
 Public/Private Perspectives
 Public Services as Human Rights
 Private Sector Participation
 Structural theories
 Wittfogel- ‘Oriental Despotism’ and the Hydraulic State
 Swyngedouw- ‘Government to Governance’/Weakened state
 Informal networks and actors
 Social Capital- ‘bonding and bridging’/ social relation factors
 Bricolage- adapted, local context shaped networks

6. ACCESS, AGENCY, AND DISCOURSE
 Ask yourself, “how do I access water?”
 For most of us, we access it as a service in our houses and buy it as a product in
discrete units (gallons)… and even, tangentially, embedded in the food that we buy.
 For residents of countries with non-existent, barely or non-functional infrastructure,
access to water is a high stakes game.
 Agency - Affordability and Accountability
 Either you can purchase whatever you need and/or you can nudge governments to
provide it as a service.
 Discourse Control- The Power of Problem Defining
 Academic Perspectives
 Media /Public Perceptions
 Voices from Civil Society Organizations/NGOs

7. WASH SERVICE DELIVERY – MAJOR
POLICY PERSPECTIVES
 Coordination, Cooperation, Capacity, and Political Will
 Global-level Coordination, Cooperation, and Political Will (SWA process,
etc.)
 National-level (budget allocations, SWAp)
 Decentralization
 Service Delivery and Management Models
 2004 World Bank World Development Report ‘Making Services Work for
the Poor’
 Aid Effectiveness /Value for Money

8. FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTION-
IDENTIFYING WASH GOVERNANCE ISSUES
Major Gaps in Access
Market imperfections and lax regulation
Corruption
Conflict- political , social, economic
Project failure
Low levels of accountability and voice in
other sectors/generally

9. IMPROVING WASH GOVERNANCE
 Affordability
 Service Efficiency and Effectiveness
 Accountability mechanisms
 Utility report cards, participatory budgeting, monitoring & evaluation,
“smart government”, etc.
 Decentralization ?
 Economic Development
 Democracy

10. …AND IMPLEMENT IT?
 • Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Performance Index- Performance and
equity
 • Water and Sanitation Index of Development Effectiveness (WIDE)- Resource inputs
& results
 • WASH Sustainability Frameworks
 FIETS sustainability approach (financial, institutional, environmental, technical and
social)
 Triple-S (Sustainable Services at Scale)
 WaterAid sustainability framework
 • Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) –
Finances, planning and coordination, M&E, human resources
 • USAID Sustainable Index Tool - Project-Specific WASH assessment
 • Various Political Economy of WASH reports
MEASURING WASH GOVERNANCE
CAN WE BUILD A BETTER MEASURE?

11. CONNECTING THEORY AND PRACTICE
 “10,000 meter”- level thinking on the basics of determinants of access.
 Going beyond ‘banging fist on table’ about what should and should not
be.
 Aiming to avoid a priori biases on roles of public and private sector.
 Focusing on service delivery models.
 Explore role of decentralization
 Spending more time on understanding country enabling
environment/WASH Governance context before spending money on
new projects.
 Learning from failure – in terms of sector reform, specific projects, etc.