La efectividad de una política de descentralización depende de muchos factores y no puede ser concebida como una panacea para solventar los problemas de provisión de agua potable en todos los contextos.
In this report the authors argue that there is a need for both improved procedures and better preactice in th eestimation of the economic benefits of water supply projects.
The authors discuss the concept of "economic benefits" in the water supply sector, and then present several approaches that can be used the estimate the economic benefits to households of portable water supply improvements.
The aim of this working paper is to investigate the optimal regulatory routes from a competition and public interest point of view for the South African water industry.
Drawing on a dataset covering a large number of randomly sampled villages across China, the present paper examines the issue of residential solid waste management service provision in rural China.
The water tariffs currently in use in most cities in South Asia are not accomplishing their principal objectives. They are not generating sufficient revenues to ensure that utilities can recover their financial costs. They are not sending the correct economic signals to households, i.e., that water is scarce and must be treated as a valuable commodity. They are not helping the majority of the poor households, many of whom are not connected to the piped distribution system.
Increasing block tariffs (IBTs), widely used in the developing world, are claimed to produce desirable income transfers, discourage wasteful use, promote economic efficiency, and assure access to sufficient water for basic sanitation. In fact, these claims are either excessive or incorrect. In practice, IBTs are likely to promote inefficiency, inequity, unfairness, net revenue instability, and other negative consequences. An alternative tariff design, a uniform price with rebate (UPR), is presented.
The use of increasing block water tariffs is widespread throughout developing countries. An increasing block tariff (IBT) is a price structure in which a commodity is priced at a low initial rate up to a specified volume of use (block), then at a higher or several increasingly higher rates for additional block used.
The ordinary household municipal water bill in developing countries is often calculated on some sort of IBT structure, and donor organizations and consultants continue to recomend this practice for town and city water systems.
