Partnership for development

Abstract

Many governments in developing countries fail to deliver affordable and sustainable water and sanitation services to their people, particularly the poor. Weak governance, insufficient investments in infrastructure, and inadequate tariff structures are considered to be at the core of poor performing water utilities. Since 2006 the UN Secretary General!s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation is promoting the WOP (Water Operator Partnership) concept as a way to improve worldwide access to water supply and sanitation. The WOP is defined as a structured program of cooperation among water operators, implemented through mutual support based on knowledge transfer on a not for profit basis. Vitens Evides International (VEI), an alliance of two Dutch drinking water companies, is involved in different WOPs in Yemen, Vietnam and Mongolia. Each project has its successes, but also difficulties are experienced during the execution of the partnerships. To support future decision making on participation in new partnerships, VEI attaches importance to research on lessons that can be learned so far from the ongoing partnerships. The main question in this research is: What factors decisively affect the performance of a WOP, (how) can these factors be influenced, and what conclusions are to be drawn given a certain state of these factors when assessing the feasibility of a successful WOP? Two of VEI!s currently executed WOPs (one in Da Nang (Vietnam) and one in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia)) were analyzed in order to identify the determinants of a successful WOP. Against the backlight of a theoretical framework provided by the New Institutional Economics (NIE), a qualitative holistic approach to case study research was chosen. By doing so, the case study findings provided the opportunity to – apart from drawing conclusions about the determinants of a successful WOP – reflect on the applicability of the NIE theories on the concept of a WOP. The theories provided by the NIE appeared to be unable to give an explanation for the empirical observations, and give no coherence to the observed characteristics of transactions, actors, and coordination mechanisms. Reflection on the theory shows the context specificity of the NIE framework. The identified determinants of a successful WOP are: a supportive institutional context of the water sector, and relationships between the key individuals that execute the partnership, that are based on trust, respect, and mutual understanding. Building such relationships asks for frequent interaction, time, patience, and for generating “quick wins”.