Evaluating the institutional sustainability of an urban water utility: A conceptual framework and research directions

doi:10.1016/j.jup.2013.08.001

Utilities Policy

Volume 27, December 2013, Pages 15-27

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2013.08.001 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Literature synthesis and conceptualising institutional sustainability as capacity.
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We adapted various concepts to develop a Water Utility Maturity (WUM) model.
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WUM model defines 5 maturity levels for 5 dimensions of institutional capacity.

Abstract

Institutional sustainability (IS) is critical to translating infrastructure investments into actual service delivery. This paper examines IS for urban water utilities, and how its progress could be tracked. Common conceptualisations of IS in extant literature were found inadequate from an evaluation stand point. We conceptualize IS as a capacity rather than a financial issue, and, consistent with a process-based approach, we propose a new evaluation tool – the water utility maturity (WUM) model – which is flexible and considers different levels of IS. The WUM model, which requires further validation/verification, was piloted in two water utilities in South Asia with positive feedback.

Introduction

Institutional sustainability is considered one of the yardsticks by which development interventions (including urban water supply projects) are evaluated. Over the past two decades, attempts have been made by various scholars to define institutional sustainability (e.g., Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith, 1990, Ludwig et al., 1997, Brunckhorst, 1998, Pfahl, 2005, Hill, 2008) and to measure it (e.g. Norwegian Agency for Development, 2000; Bell and Morse, 2003, Edwards, 2005, Litten, 2005). But there is still no consensus on what institutional sustainability exactly means neither are there accepted and uncontested indicators to facilitate its evaluation.

While Multilateral Development Banks such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank and European Investment Bank desire institutional sustainability of the water and sanitation interventions they finance, few define it in operational terms. This paper examines the concept of institutional sustainability in an urban water utility context, and how progress could be tracked within a typical project/program. The paper is structured as follows. First, we briefly discuss how the concepts of institutions, institutional sustainability, institutional capacity and institutional capacity development have been defined in international development literature, and highlight an emerging conceptual framework for defining institutional sustainability as a capacity issue. Then, we summarize existing guidelines and tools for evaluating institutional sustainability in the water sector and other development interventions. Finally, the paper examines how these concepts can be applied to develop a more effective assessment tool for tracking a water utility's progress towards institutional sustainability.

Section snippets

Methods

This study was carried out in 2011 under the auspices of the World Bank, and consisted of a review of the literature and pilot studies conducted with two major urban water utilities in South Asia. The literature review sought to answer the following questions:

i.
What are the different conceptualizations of institutional sustainability in the development literature?
ii.
What are their shortcomings from the stand point of evaluation?
iii.
What sorts of indicators have been used by practitioners to evaluate

Institutions and institutional sustainability: conceptual debates

Institutions and institutional sustainability are broad and complex concepts, with no precise definitions. The concepts are applied differently in various disciplines and theoretical traditions. Needless to say, a more detailed assessment of the meanings of the terms in the context of the water sector is critical to understanding how institutional sustainability can be evaluated. This section provides a brief review of how these key terms have been defined in the extant literature, and how they

Institutional capacity and capacity development

Over the past two decades, there has been growing emphasis on the importance of institutional capacity and its development in the urban water sector. Urban water projects of the 1960s and 1970s were primarily directed towards the provision of physical assets and infrastructure. Through the 1980s and 1990s there was a growing realization that in many cases such projects had not been entirely successful, and that they had often not yielded the expected benefits in terms of improved services. For

Evaluation of institutional capacity as a leading indicator of institutional sustainability

A review of the literature presented in Sub-section 3.2 shows that in the immediate past, many practitioners and scholars conceptualised institutional sustainability as an abstract attribute, which presented practical difficulties for monitoring and evaluating the progress towards sustainability. However, one school of thought regards institutional sustainability as a capacity issue, implying that an evaluation of institutional sustainability is essentially an evaluation of institutional

Limitations of existing evaluation frameworks and guidelines

The previous section shows that institutional capacity has been evaluated in various ways, depending on the conceptual framework being applied. The guidelines were presented into three categories: those specifically developed for water utilities (summarised in Table 1); those applied in the water sector (summarised in Table 2); and those that have been used by international development agencies to evaluate the institutional sustainability of various development-related interventions in

Developing a water utility maturity model

This paper proposes a new evaluation model rooted in the emerging conceptualisation of institutional capacity and modern management concepts. The Water Utility Maturity (WUM) model is based on the premise that although external assistance is important to the process of institutional capacity development, is only one of drivers: sustainable institutional capacity emerges through endogenous processes led by local actors, and that it is a long-term process, not an event. The model therefore

Summary and conclusion

This paper examined the different conceptualizations of institutions, institutional sustainability, institutional capacity and institutional development in the international development literature and how they could be adapted for evaluation of institutional development interventions in the urban water sector. As a starting point, we adopted the rule-and-role conceptualisation that is popular with social scientists, which defines institutions as a combination of organisations (as actors),

Acknowledgements

This study was conducted under the auspices of the Sustainable Development Department of the World Bank, and was partly financed by Water Partnership Program and the AusAid Policy and Decentralization Trust Fund. We are grateful to the two anonymous water utilities in Africa who participated in an earlier study that precipitated into the development of the WUM model, and to Vincent Ddamulira and Chimere Diop who carried out the studies. We also thank the two anonymous water utilities in South

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Evaluating the institutional sustainability of an urban water utility: A conceptual framework and research directions

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Methods

Institutions and institutional sustainability: conceptual debates

Institutional capacity and capacity development

Evaluation of institutional capacity as a leading indicator of institutional sustainability

Limitations of existing evaluation frameworks and guidelines

Developing a water utility maturity model

Summary and conclusion

Acknowledgements

World Dev.

Ecol. Indic.

Getting Africa on Track to Meet the MDGs on Water & Sanitation: a Status Overview of Sixteen African Countries (CSO1)

AMCOW Country Status Overviews: Pathways to Progress (CSO2)

Institutional evolution as punctuated equilibria

Characteristics of Well Performing Public Water Utilities

Capacity, Change and Performance

Measuring Sustainability: Learning by Doing

Institutional Sustainability in Agriculture and Rural Development: a Global Perspective

Capacity and capacity development: coping with complexity

Public Adm. Dev.