Compared with other urban water systems in West Africa, the water supply system in Abidjan performs very well. Documenting the recent history of that system, the authors try to answer three questions: What motivated reform in a system that was already performing well? How and why did the reform...

Piecemeal approaches to river basin development and management may not fully recognize the interactions and interdependence among components of a river basin system. River basin management that focuses on a single water use, on a single sector, or on the supply to particular segment of the basin...

The authors analyze the determinants of the efficiency levels reached by twenty one African water utilities. They assess efficiency through the estimation of a production frontier for the sector in Africa. The efficiency estimates confirm much of the common perceptions from partial productivity...

Both consumers and the government benefited from reform of the water system in Conakry, Guinea, whose deterioration since independence had become critical by the mid-1980s. Less than 40 percent of Conakry's population had access to piped water - low even by regional standards - and service was...

International river and lake basins constitute about 47 percent of the world's continental land area, a proportion that increases to about 60 percent in Africa, Asia, and South America. Because water is a scarce and increasingly valuable resource, disputes about water allocation within these...

In the late 1980s, Chile planned to privatize Santiago's sanitary works enterprise (EMOS) but instead reformed it under public ownership. It did so through a regulatory framework that mimicked the design of a concession with a private utility, setting tariffs that ensured at least a seven...

In designing a rational scheme for subsidizing water services, it is important to support the choice of design parameters with empirical analysis that stimulates the impact of subsidy options on the target population. Otherwise, there is little guarantee that the subsidy program will meet its...

The authors focus on policy interventions for improving irrigation water allocation decisions by including both macro and micro considerations in a unified analytical computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework. The approach is demonstrated, using the case of Morocco, by analyzing selected...

When the Gambia, Guinea, and Senegal decided to involve the private sector in the provision of water services, they also established state holding companies - state-owned entities with exclusive or partial responsibilities for: a) owning infrastructure assets; b) planning and financing...

The main reason Lima failed to implement a concession was geographical: the scarcity of water sources meant high marginal costs, partly for pumping water from deep wells and building adequate storage for dry periods. High extraction costs were compounded by years of neglect; much of the system...