Waterworks - providing water for households and industry

The working group is led by Edsel Sajor from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Email: esajor@ait.ac.th

Purpose and Approach

The provision of water for drinking and other domestic uses, and concurrently, the removal, treatment and disposal of waste water are critical to human health and well-being. Investments in storage and treatment facilities for municipal and town water supplies are among the largest made by governments in the water sector.

The operations of public utilities, and in some cases semi-private and private firms to whom some responsibilities for service delivery have been transferred are, for the most part, not closely monitored by the public in Mekong region countries. Decisions about loans, awards of construction and operation contracts, pricing schemes and subsidies, and so on, are rarely scrutinized. This is especially true for statutory authorities which often have major governance responsibilities.

There are indications, however, that water governance in urban areas of major cities and rural towns is beset with problems. Service is often intermittent. Water quality is frequently unfit for human consumption, and as a result, many households purchase expensive bottled-water. Quality control of producers is also uneven. Impressive infrastructure is usually followed by poor maintenance. Relationships between authorities and private sub-contractors are poorly monitored and are often corrupt. Substantial amount of damage to pipes and other infrastructure is done by other branches of government lacking plans and other information about location of buried infrastructure.

Structural problems also are apparent in the frequent observation that the poor in informal settlements of the region’s larger cities often pay more for water than firms and those living in wealthy housing estates. In other cases there is little choice but to steal.

Issues of water supply and waste water treatment in municipal areas often unfold sequentially but would benefit from greater coordinated planning and implementation. The situation for waste water treatment is even worse than for piped water supplies.

Finally financial governance issues are important. Most of the larger public water works projects involve loans from international financial institutions.

Public Documents