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Water scholars and practitioners generally agree that improving water governance is the key to addressing water insecurity in developing countries. We review the literature on water governance and argue for a second-generation research agenda, which pays more attention to the study of incentive structures, is multi and inter-disciplinary in orientation and with clear policy implications. We then illustrate how theories drawn from public economics, new institutional economics, political economy and public administration can help diagnose the challenges of integrated water resources management, improving efficiency of water utilities, privatization of utilities and public-private partnerships, water pricing reforms, virtual waters/water trading, among others. We conclude that these tools can help advance the second-generation research agenda on water governance.

During much of the 1990s, water utilities worldwide experienced a wave of privatization. The rationale for this is largely based on two hypotheses: the fiscal hypothesis and the efficiency hypothesis. This article examines the evidence and concludes that water utilities privatization has been a failure.

[1] Conventional wisdom suggests that improving water governance is the key to solving water insecurity in developing countries but there are also many disagreements on operational and methodological issues. In this paper, we build on the work of Saleth and Dinar and surveyed 100 water experts from 17 countries in Asia to compare 19 indicators of water laws, policies, and administration among and within countries from 2001 to 2010. We present the results of our study in a comparative dashboard and report how water governance indicators vary with a country's level of economic development, which ones do not and how and why some indicators change overtime in some countries. We have two main results. First, our initial findings suggest the possibility of water Kuznet's curve, i.e., certain water governance indicators vary with a country's level of economic development. However, more studies are needed given the caveats and limitations of our study. Second, the results have practical value for policy makers and researchers for benchmarking with other countries and tracking changes within their countries overtime. We conclude with implications for a second-generation research agenda on water governance.

2What makes socio-ecological systems robust? An institutional analysis of the 2000 year-old Ifugao society 1 ABSTRACT Scholars have often puzzled over why ancient socio-ecological systems (SES) have collapsed or survived overtime. This paper attempts to explain the case of the 2,000-year old Ifugao SES and the contemporary challenges they now face. Five observations can be drawn. First, the Ifugao case does not fit some of the conventional theoretical explanations for the collapse or survival of SES. Second, the Ifugao's primogeniture system of property rights along with the their customary laws and practices have played important roles in maintaining the robustness of their SES in the past 2,000 years through their effects on ecological integrity. Third, the Ifugao SES today is faced with contemporary challenges with varying effects on its robustness: integration into a postcolonial social order, the effects of tourism and agricultural development, migration, urbanization and the introduction of Christianity and mass education. Fourth, despite these changes, the collapse of the Ifugao SES is not a certainty (i.e. shift to a new domain of attraction that cannot support a human population, or that will induce a transition that causes long-term human suffering).

This paper provides an overview of the reform of water institutions in developing countries in the last three decades focusing on the 'what, why and how' of institutional reform, and outlines their implications for policy and research. The review covers four areas: (1) water rights and river hasin institutions; (2) decentralized irrigation management; (3) private sector participation in urban water supply; and (4) regulation of water infrastructure. The review suggests that (a) the theoretical rationale for reforms is mostly grounded on arguments for efficiency, effectiveness and fiscal sustainability with little considerations for equity; (b) models of institutional design varies from incremental to comprehensive; and (c) implementation experiences among countries are mixed, given the conditional nature of institutional reform; and (d) changes in elite perception holds the key to reform.

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