ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the main features of water and sanitation services typical to the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Despite variations in size and natural landscape, all have decentralized public administration and local authorities that play a central role in the provision of essential services, including water and sanitation. Changes in the Nordic countries are typically not radical, but occur gradually. This can be partly explained by the multi-party democratic tradition. Some administrative reforms have taken place; but the central role of local authorities has remained, or even strengthened. Water and sanitation services are considered so essential that they are to be kept under close public control while the decentralized administration structure places the responsibility for them at the local level. An external factor that has contributed to the development of the decentralized water service structure is the relatively low population density, with the exception of Denmark. But even though the water and sanitation services are, in principle, public, the private sector is not excluded – the reverse is actually true. Municipal water undertakings commonly outsource non-core activities to such an extent that the majority of operational activities are carried out by private companies.
