ABSTRACT
There is a consensus both in the literature and policy circles that “water crisis is essentially a crisis of governance” (Global Water Partnership 2000). This fact applies equally to both the water sector as a whole as well as its main subsectors, i.e. urban water supply and irrigation. Given the economic, social, and environmental costs associated with ineffective water-governance arrangements, there is an urgent need to evaluate the effectiveness of existing water-governance arrangements and their alternatives. Such an evaluation requires a clear, operationally applicable and commonly understood definition of water governance and its alternative forms and their key features and indicators of effectiveness applicable at various scales. Such an operational and analytical understanding can form the basis for evaluating alternative water-governance arrangements in terms of their ability to meet the efficiency, equity, and sustainability goals. It can also form the basis for the evaluation of ongoing and proposed reforms that might improve the effectiveness of water governance in specific contexts.
