Key takeaways
The role of water service providers is to deliver on the core features of SDG6, namely access to safe water, improved sanitation and rainwater drainage. In addition, water service providers can contribute to the five critical water missions set forth in this report. They must do so in accordance with the Water System Justice approach defined in Chapter 4.
In the new context for water, characterised by a destabilised hydrological cycle, this requires a shift in perspective: from moving water away from cities through centralised, grey and piped infrastructures to a focus on improved service and environmental quality, resilience, and justice, through efficiency, reuse, catchment protection, and the combination of green and grey infrastructure.
This transition requires policies and institutions that are fit for purpose. The preference of governing agencies, regulators, and financiers for central, piped infrastructure should give way to promoting a mix of on-site decentralised and centralised systems to enable universal coverage and service access. Priority should be given to serving those left behind first; phased universal coverage can be considered as a second-best.
For a vast majority of the global population, the role of individual provision, community managed services, and informal markets should be acknowledged and factored in. Water utilities, public-service organisations, or other arrangements should be tasked with gradually supporting the transition towards services in line with health, environmental, and economic regulation.
The transition also requires that, where they exist, mission-centred water utilities (public or private) be governed to contribute to public value. Economic regulation can provide the appropriate incentives by defining performance criteria, reviewing development and investment plans, setting adequate tariff levels and structures, and ensuring revenues from water tariffs contribute to improved service provision.
Tariffs should signal the full social costs of water use, with customer-assistance programmes targeted at poor households. Thorough reviews of which costs should be covered by water bills contribute to an economically efficient and socially just contribution of revenues from user tariffs.
Contractual arrangements between organising entities and service providers – be they public or private – should drive operational performance, public value, and justice.