Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households

This paper applies a Conceptual framework of governance failure to,in analysis of the institutional dimensions of urban water supply provision to poor households, focusing oil the case of Jakarta. Data from a household Survey, archives, GIS-based mapping, and interviews arc used to document governance failures that create disincentives for utilities to connect poor households and for poor households to connect. The paper Concludes by suggesting that the debate over the relative merits of public and private provision has diverted attention front the pressing issue Of governance reform, and by raising the question of whether household provision of networked water supply by monopolistic providers (whether public or private) is universally feasible given the Cut-rent water supply policy norms. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.