3 ways to improve water supplies in small towns

Photo: a public faucet that serves 1,000 families in el Alto, Bolivia. Photo credit: Stephan Bachenheimer / World Bank

Small towns typically have not been well served by national or regional water utilities. Decentralization has become increasingly widely adopted, but even if local governments at the small town level have the power to operate a water utility, they often lack the capital and skills to do so. In response, some local governments and public institutions concentrate improvements on upgrading public utilities’ operations or strengthening community-based management. In other cases, they choose to bring in private sector knowledge of how to get clean water and sanitation services to more people more efficiently, affordably or sustainably.

There is no one solution to addressing often very complex water and sanitation challenges. There are many ways in which the public sector can leverage its own resources through partnering with the private sector. For the domestic private sector to fully realize its potential at scale in the small town sub-sector, we found they need capable and enabled public institutions to structure the market and regulate private operators. Lessons learned from case study countries (Colombia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Uganda […]

Full article: 3 ways countries can improve water supplies in small towns