The concepts and principles associated with Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) have been around for many decades. The IWRM approach of merging water and wastewater utilities into a single organization has several advantages, particularly for larger urban areas. Not only can pipes for both services be laid in the same excavation, but human resources can also be conserved through cross‐training of water supply and wastewater services personnel. Although there are advantages, for a variety of reasons the concept has been slow to gain acceptance. Some of these reasons have to do with the approach to utility services in different countries; for example, in Germany wastewater services fall under the purview of the roads department. Utility services in Finland, and to a lesser extent Sweden, provide opportunities to study the implementation of IWRM on a wider scale. Certainly the mergers of water and wastewater utilities in these two countries have had their challenges. There has sometimes been little cooperation, and even a culture of rivalry between staff of the merged utilities. But more significant, there has been very little documentation about how the processes of separate utilities providing different services were actually merged. This article looks at what is known and what information is lacking about these types of mergers and suggests areas for additional study. The authors suggest that the lessons learned from the implementation of IWRM in Finland and Sweden have wider global applications as countries search for ways to incorporate greater efficiencies while working with increasingly limited resources.
There is no empirical proof that private enterprises manage and operate facilities more efficiently than public ones. Instead of privatization, it is better to promote viable public-private partnerships and commercialization of services. The core businesses of water and sewage works should preferably be retained by a municipalityowned enterprise. In the selection of the mode(s) of water service implementation, one must consider the nature of the services, the long-term experiences, and transaction costs. The nature of water and sanitation service activity itself requires that long-term development should be considered in decision making. The institutional framework must be such that all parties benefit from cooperation. Whichever management or contract model is selected, the ownership of the utilities should preferably remain in the hands of municipalities whose decisions on services citizens should be able to influence through local democracy. The responsibility for arranging water services lies de facto with the public sector.
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