Wastewater Management Under the Dutch Water Boards: Any Lessons for Developing Countries?

Abstract

This chapter has been written with the purpose to provide a contrast to the discussion on water and sanitation services from the perspective of the MDGs. A number of characteristics of improper sanitation and hygiene practices that are prevalent in the developing world today were present in Europe a century ago. Interestingly, institutional reform reflected in emergence in constitutional, collective and operational rules was incremental and gradual at best. Water boards are independent regional authorities who control and manage water quantity, quality and treatment of wastewater. They are public regional authorities with limited legally defined tasks, elected boards and allowed to raise taxes. This chapter examines the evolution of the Water Boards and emergence of accompanying policy and legal framework at both national and European levels. The reasoning behind benchmarking of water services and the processes that underlie such a project are described in this chapter.