This report assesses the extent to which Dutch water governance is fit for future challenges and sketches an agenda for the reform of water policies in the Netherlands. It builds on a one-year policy dialogue with over 100 Dutch stakeholders, supported by robust analytical work and drawing on international best practice.

This report diagnoses the main governance and financing challenges to private sector participation in the water supply and wastewater sector of Tunisia, and provides ways forward to address these challenges. It been developed as part of a water policy dialogue conducted by the OECD jointly with the Global Water Partnership-Mediterranean (GWP-Med) in the context of the project labelled by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) "Governance and Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector", with the support of the FEMIP Trust Fund of the European Investment Bank.

While COVID 19 has hit Peru particularly hard, with about 1.4 million cases as of March 2021, the pandemic further emphasised the importance of water and sanitation for health, the environment and the economy. The country is not yet on track to meet the targets of SDG 6 “Clean water and sanitation” by 2030, with 3 million Peruvians (9.2% of the population) lacking access to water services and 8.2 million Peruvians (25.2%) lacking access to sewerage services, and a large urban rural divide. In addition, between 2000 and 2020, floods affected an estimated 4.43 million people, while inadequate management of solid waste and some economic activities are amongst the causes of water pollution, leading to severe public health issues, and social conflicts. In the face of climate change and demographic growth, strengthening water governance in Peru is key for long term water security improvements. The report provides an analysis of water governance in the country and policy recommendations to: strengthen the multi sectoral approach to water; improve the use of economic instruments to protect and sustainably use water resources, its sources and related ecosystem services; and strengthen regulatory conditions to improved access to safe drinking water and sanitation in urban and rural areas.

This report addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy implementation and identifies good practices for coordinating water policy across ministries, between levels of government, and across local actors at subnational level. Based on a methodological framework, it assesses the main “coordination gaps” in terms of policymaking, financing, information, accountability, objectives and capacity building, and provides a platform of existing governance mechanisms to bridge them. Based on an extensive survey on water governance the report provides a comprehensive institutional mapping of roles and responsibilities in water policy-making at national/subnational level in 17 OECD countries. It concludes on preliminary multilevel governance guidelines for integrated water policy.

This report addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy in the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) and identifies good practices for co-ordinating water across ministries, between levels of government, and across local and regional actors.  Based on the OECD Multilevel Governance Framework and a survey on water governance, the report i) maps the allocation of roles and responsibilities in 13 LAC countries’ water policy at central government and sub-national level; ii) identifies the main coordination “gaps” in terms of territorial and institutional fragmentation, funding mismatch, information asymmetry, accountability, objectives and capacity, and iii) provides a range of mechanisms to improve water governance at all levels and foster capacity-building.

In 2018, the city of Cape Town, South Africa, was close to the “Day Zero”, requiring all taps to be shut off and citizens to fetch a daily 25 litre per person. Though the day-zero was avoided, it is estimated that, at the current rate, South Africa will experience a 17% water deficit by 2030 if no action is taken to respond to existing trends. Lessons learned during that drought crisis have been valuable for the city to manage the short-term COVID-19 implications and design long-term solutions towards greater water resilience. As a result of a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue involving 100+ stakeholders from the city of Cape Town and South Africa, this report assesses key water risks and governance challenges in Cape Town, and provides policy recommendations towards more effective, efficient and inclusive water management building on the OECD Principles on Water Governance. In particular, the report calls for strengthening integrated basin governance, transparency, integrity, stakeholder engagement, capacities at all levels of government, financial sustainability and for advancing the water allocation reform to better manage trade-offs across multiple users.

Ensuring long-term water security is essential in the pathway towards sustainable development in Argentina. Floods cause 60% of all critical events in the country and are responsible for 95% of economic losses. Severe droughts, in a country where the agricultural sector accounts for 6.4% of GDP as compared to a global average of 3.6%, have a strong impact in the economy. The country is also home to some of the most polluted basins worldwide. Furthermore, climate change will likely shift further water availability, uses and demand. The report is the result of a policy dialogue with more than 200 stakeholders at different levels in Argentina. It assesses water governance in Argentina, identifies several key challenges to effective, efficient and inclusive water policies, and provides a set of policy recommendations to enhance water governance as a means to address relevant societal challenges, both within the scope of water management and beyond. In particular, ways forward for Argentina include strengthening the co-ordination between national and provincial water policies, setting up a multilevel water planning and investment framework, improving basin management practices, and enhancing economic regulation for water services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a magnifying glass on pressing water and sanitation challenges in African cities, stressing and widening inequalities, especially for the 56% of the urban population living in informal settlements, lacking basic handwashing facilities, and relying on public water points and shared toilets. Before the pandemic, African countries and cities were already facing mounting water challenges with, in Sub-Saharan Africa only, 418 million people lacking basic access to water supply and 717 million to sanitation, in addition to concomitant floods, droughts and pollution issues. Megatrends related to climate change, urbanisation and population growth add more pressure on water resources and require urgent attention for African cities to cope with future water challenges. Building on a Survey on Water Governance across 36 cities of all size in Africa, this report provides a regional overview of the allocation of roles and responsibilities for water management, the existence and implementation of institutional, policy and regulatory frameworks, as well as the critical governance gaps that need to be bridged in order to boost city government capacity to drive water security in the continent.

Water is a vital resource for human health, economic development and environmental quality. Over the past three decades, OECD Member countries have made major strides in the management of their water resources. Increasingly, however, water is coming back onto the policy agenda. Persistent water quality problems, the need for heavy investments in water delivery and treatment infrastructure, and growing competition for finite supplies are forcing greater attention on the mix of policies needed to achieve efficient and effective integrated water resources management.
The integrated management of water resources is not a new concept. The notion of "integration", however, is evolving. Greater emphasis is being given to the full recognition of the water needs of the environment in pricing policies, allocation decisions and institutional reform. There is also a growing number of examples of the integration of a wider range of stakeholders, including the private sector and local communities, in water resources planning and management.
This report presents the discussions and conclusions of the OECD workshop on sustainable water consumption, which was held in Sydney, Australia (10-12 February 1997). Drawing on examples from OECD Member countries and selected countries from the Asia-Pacific, it examines progress made on a range of key water policy issues and examines some of the more innovative attempts to put into practice a wider vision of integration.

This report examines the current system of water abstraction and pollution charges in operation in Brazil. It assesses the current system’s implementation challenges and provides possible solutions. The report explores how water charges can be both an effective means for dealing with water security issues, and a tool for enhancing economic growth and social welfare. Specific analysis is put forward for three case studies in the State of Rio de Janiero, the Paraiba do Sul River Basin and the Piancó-Piranhas-Açu River Basin. The report highlights that water charges need to operate in conjunction with an effective water regulatory regime and concludes with an Action Plan based on practical steps and recommendations for its implementation in the short, medium and long-term.
 

This OECD Emission Scenario Document (ESD) is intended to provide information on the sources, use patterns, and potential release pathways of chemicals to be used in water washing machines at industrial and institutional laundries. The document presents standard approaches for estimating the environmental releases of and occupational exposures to chemicals used in water washing machines in laundries.

This report provides a cross-country review of waste, materials management and circular economy policies in selected OECD countries, drawing on OECD’s Environmental Performance Reviews during the period 2010-17. It presents the main achievements in the countries reviewed, along with common trends and policy challenges, and provides insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of waste, materials management and circular economy policy frameworks. As the selected reviews were published over a seven-year period, information for some countries may be more recent than for others. Nevertheless, the policy recommendations emerging from the reviews may provide useful lessons for other OECD countries and partner economies.

Do voluntary approaches deliver the expected environmental benefits?  Do they help reach environmental targets in a cost-effective way?  This report provides an assessment of the use of voluntary approaches building on a number of new case studies.  Analysis is on the environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency and the administrative costs either used in isolation or as part of “policy mixes”.  The book concludes that the environmental effectiveness of voluntary approaches is often questionable, and their economic efficiency is generally low.

This report reviews vehicle emissions standards in Europe, Japan and the United States, providing the reader with valuable comparisons. It also examines incentives for sulphur free fuels - which can contribute to reducing both conventional air emissions and carbon dioxide. It describes emissions control technologies and the impact of emissions on health and the environment and assesses the adequacy of emissions limits for new passenger cars and heavy duty diesel engines.

The objective of this scoping study is to discuss and assess potential paths to advance towards a stated preference (SP) protocol with the aim of estimating the benefits of improvements in environmental endpoints due to chemical management and regulatory decisions. This scoping study is meant as a starting point for discussions on developing and testing a survey instrument. Particular attention is given to the possible generalisability of a survey, and the capacity for future benefit transfer applications. An emphasis is placed on isolating direct values for environmental endpoints and trying to minimise consideration of human health motivations (which are being valued separately under the OECD Surveys of willingness-to-pay to avoid negative chemicals-related health effects (SWACHE) Project). Several key challenges are discussed, including the identification of widely applicable environmental endpoints that can be linked to human welfare, ecotoxicological models, and policy-levers; the role of scientific uncertainties in estimating ex-ante benefits; and communicating baseline conditions in the face of such uncertainties. Alternative valuation questions are posed and discussed, along with practical steps to consider in advancing towards the development and testing of a SP survey instrument.

Economic valuation is widely used in OECD countries as a way of assessing the (usually monetary) value of goods that have no markets. In the rural context, valuation methods are used to argue for or against projects and policy choices in areas as diverse as agricultural support policies, local economic development, land use and biodiversity assessment.
This volume reviews a range of different valuation methodologies -- stated preferences, cost-benefit, revealed preferences, and others -- and looks at how these different approaches influence choices in rural policy. Its aim is to assess whether some set of international guidelines or standards could be used to reduce the subjectivity of the evidentiary information.