Task 3 - Regional Water Governance Benchmarking System

At the completion of Task 2, the IRG team will have put in place a well-thought out and agreed-upon conceptual framework (Task 1), and developed a clear picture of the institutional landscape in each of the focal countries, which will be available both individually and in relationship to other countries (Task 2). Our team, and more importantly country stakeholders, will have a good understanding of the important elements making up a national institutional framework and an appreciation of the opportunities and constraints controlling the likely pace of reform in governance practice. We will thus be well-prepared for defining indicators and establishing baseline values.

Our first step under Task 3 will be to identify a simple, but robust, set of indicators for benchmarking water governance practices and performance that will be an extension of the assessments completed under Task 2, and will be led by the same team members who lead those activities. The team will collect information to estimate baselines, and five and 20 year values for indicators (which can be either qualitative or quantitative) through a combination of secondary sources, surveys of experts, and stakeholder workshops. For the surveys, a short questionnaire will be developed and administered to experts (30-50 for each country), including government officials, academics, water user representatives, donor agencies, and NGO members. To capture both internal and external perspectives, the sample will include both national experts and outside specialists familiar with the country in question. We will work with the AWC, USAID, and other bodies to identify experts to be surveyed.

As a pilot case, we will discuss the feasibility of reviewing standards currently used to benchmark water utilities in the MENA region with Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA), and work with them to formalize a set of indicators, measurements, and data management standards. ECO Consult, which works with ACWUA, will lead this subcomponent. The benchmarking toolkit for water utilities developed by the International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities may be a good starting point, particularly for performance benchmarking. This pilot will help inform the more challenging future task of benchmarking performance of irrigation service delivery and the still greater challenge of applying such a system to management of aquatic ecosystems.

The specific activities are:

1. Discuss with ACWUA the feasibility of a pilot case to review water utilities benchmarking in MENA countries, and formalize a set of indicators and measurement and data management standards
2. Implement pilot case if deemed feasible
3. For focal countries, identify governance indicators, baseline values for each, and five and 20 year projections through: (1) review of secondary sources and (2) survey (via questionnaire) of experts
4. Prepare report of indicators, baselines, projections, data and systems requirements, and support needed for implementing benchmarking framework, including monitoring of indicator achievement over time