A Sourcebook - UN-Water

Government responses to citizen demand
For citizens’ demands to translate into changes by government, government decision makers need to
be rewarded for delivering what citizens want, and punished for not doing so. The pay-off to decision
makers for giving citizens what they want must be greater than the benefits from corruption. One system
for doing this will be political competition, where those decision-makers that fail to serve the public
interest lose their position (and in so doing also lose the corrupt benefits of office).
Once governments are motivated to deliver the water services citizens want, governments need to
make the water service provider perform the way government wants it to. This is difficult. Many national
and municipal governments own their water providers, and yet Presidents, Ministers, and Mayors
find it difficult to get the provider to deliver a good service at reasonable price. Other governments
have outsourced water services to private firms, to try to increase competence or accountability or
both. Section 10.3 discusses the techniques governments can use to become increasingly successful in
holding providers accountable for good performance.
Provider responses to government (and consumer) demand
To deliver good performance at reasonable cost, providers cannot afford to be corrupt. Therefore,
accountable provider managers will work to reduce corruption in their organization. They will use the
techniques discussed in Section 9. The governance and accountability arrangements discussed in this
section are thus the things that motivate provider managers to increase probity.
10.2 Empowering Citizens
Citizen demand for good service is an important factor in ensuring that providers deliver good water
services. However, for citizens to make their demands effective, they need both information on which
to base their demands, and an ability to influence the government and providers. Ways to increase
citizens’ information and influence are outlined below. These methods, and other complementary or
alternative approaches, are described in more detail in the sources listed in Source List 10.1 (beginning
on page 117).
10.2.1 Information
To demand good water services, citizens need information on what level of service they are actually
getting, and what level of service they could reasonably expect. Methods for increasing information
on current levels of service above and beyond information gained from individual household experience
or casual neighborhood discussions include:
• R equiring providers to issue regulatory-type reports of performance against standards. To
ensure this information is meaningful to consumers, and is issued regularly, regulators should
ideally issue templates and guidance on standard avenues for information reporting (for example,
via media that consumers can readily access), and enforce compliance with reporting
requirements. Although this increases the regulatory burden for both regulators and providers,
it is a relatively low-cost means for increasing information to consumers. Consumers can assist in
monitoring provider compliance with reporting requirements, using complaint mechanisms to
report non-compliance
U sing report cards, surveys or consumer meetings
• to gather a wide range of consumer feedback
on performance (see Box 10.1)—these options are effective where providers are reluctant
to issue information or where consumers need some guidance in interpreting performance
data, or where sharing customer experiences can usefully supplement performance reporting
by the utility
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