"Given the relatively small segment of the population that faces genuine affordability problems in Latin America, there appears to be a promising case for using targeted subsidies to reconcile the cost recovery objective with social protection concerns. Social tariff schemes of various kinds are...

This report identifies opportunities and challenges for local financing of water utilities in Peru and suggests recommendations for removing barriers and creating incentives for scaling-up local financing to local water utilities. It was developed with an understanding that meeting the...

Water is a fundamental platform for economic and social development, and contributes to reducing multiple dimensions of poverty. It is essential to food and energy security, industrial growth, and the protection of ecosystems. Water has been going through unprecedented pressures as growing...

1. Water challenge : an institutional diagnosis -- 2. Understanding institutions : nature, performance, and change -- 3. Existing literature : approaches, attempts, and limitations -- 4. Evaluating institutional linkages : towards an alternative methodology -- 5. Analytical framework and...

"In determining domestic water prices, policy makers often need to use information about the demand side rather than only relying on information about the supply side. Household surveys have frequently been employed to collect demand-side information. This paper presents a multiple bounded...

"Subsidies to residential utility customers are popular among policymakers, utility managers, and utility customers alike, but they are nonetheless the subject of much controversy. Utility subsidies are seen as a way to help make utility service affordable for poor households and as an...

"The pressure on an already stressed water situation in South Africa is predicted to increase significantly under climate change, plans for large industrial expansion, observed rapid urbanization, and government programs to provide access to water to millions of previously excluded people. The...

"China has experienced a wide-scale and rapid transformation from an agricultural based economy to the manufacturing workshop of the world. The associated relocation of the population from relatively low density rural areas to very high density urban areas is having a significant impact on the...