The Politics of Building Effective Water Utilities in the Global South: A Case of NWSC Uganda
The Politics of Building Effective Water Utilities in the Global South: A Case of NWSC Uganda
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DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.3668153
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发表时间：
2020-08
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Badru Bukenya
中科院分区：
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作者：
Badru Bukenya
虽然发展中国家的大多数公共供水公司业绩不佳，但有些公司已经实现了显著的转变，现在正在有效地履行其任务。目前对这种转变的分析侧重于机构和组织层面的解释，忽视了推动发展中国家公共部门绩效的政治经济因素。这项研究采用了“政治解决分析”来解释乌干达国家供水和污水处理公司（NWSC）的转机，发生在1998年和2004年之间，为什么它的业绩一直不平衡。为了实现这一转变，乌干达占主导地位的执政联盟在国内资源有限的情况下努力规划发展轨迹，于1998年同意了一项世界银行启发的建设NWSC商业和金融能力的方案。拙劣的私有化举措帮助政治精英、关键技术官僚和捐助者结成了一个罕见的联盟，使NWSC得以实施一项为期六年的协调和不间断的支持计划。与此同时，后转变阶段发生在不同的政治动态下，其特点是执政联盟难以驾驭，政治竞争加剧，政府与捐助者关系冷淡。统治精英们转向新成立的NWSC收取租金，并建立其在城市中的声望。这种压力激励了NWSC领导层优先考虑具有可见和即时商业利益的活动，而牺牲了长期运营的可持续性。这些研究结果表明，对机构建设的外部支持可以成功，如果它与当地权力关系产生的主要激励措施相一致。公共组织的领导人如何管理他们运作的不断变化的政治环境，与他们的技术能力同样重要。
Although most public water utilities in developing countries perform poorly, some have achieved remarkable turnarounds and now deliver effectively on their mandate. Current analyses of such turnarounds focus on institutional- and organisational-level explanations that ignore the political economy factors that drive public sector performance in developing countries. This study employed the ‘political settlement analysis’ to explain both Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) turnaround that happened between 1998 and 2004 and why its performance has since been uneven. For the turnaround to happen, Uganda’s dominant ruling coalition, struggling to chart a developmental trajectory with limited domestic resources, agreed to a World Bank-inspired programme for building NWSC’s commercial and financial capabilities in 1998. The botched privatisation move helped bring the political elite, key technocrats and donors into a rare coalition that enabled a six-year programme of harmonised and uninterrupted support for NWSC. Meanwhile, the post-turnaround phase happened under different political dynamics, characterised by a fractious ruling coalition, increased political competition and frosty government–donor relations. The ruling elite turned to the newly effective NWSC for rents and for building its urban popularity. The pressures from this incentivised NWSC leadership to prioritise activities with visible and immediate commercial benefits, at the expense of long-term operational sustainability. These findings suggest that external support for institution building can succeed, where it is aligned with the dominant incentives generated by the local power relations. And how leaders of public organisations manage the changing political context within which they operate is as important as their technical capacity.