Aligning Institutional Diversity and Service Quality with Performance Indicators Systems: an International Comparison in the Water Sector

The reforms of the urban water sector embrace a wide diversity of institutional forms worldwide since the 2000s. Nonetheless, a common trait of the numerous institutional arrangements is the state attempting to implement performance management to regulate water utilities. New Public Management principles and demand for accountability legitimate this common change, which led numerous actors with different scope and territorial coverage to promote the use of performance indicators as a requirement for designing good governance in the water sector. This research questions how the implementation of performance indicators shaped service delivery quality and institutional forms. In doing so, we contribute to the debate about the embeddedness and effectiveness of the policy change. We carry out a mixed research design to both measure the effects of the performance indicators implementations on central aspects of water service delivery, such as access or leakages, and retrace the patterns of performance indicators implementations according to the policy environment. We will analyze existing performance indicators systems worldwide since 2000, about 20.