An increasing number of countries are facing mounting challenges to manage effectively too little, too much, and too polluted water and to sustain universal coverage of drinking water and sanitation services due to massive investment backlogs in infrastructure and difficulties to maintain and operate existing assets.
Three years after OECD adopted the Principles on Water Governance, this report takes stock on their use and provides an indicator framework and a set of evolving practices, building on lessons learned from their implementation and application in different countries and contexts. These tools, which are the result of an extensive bottom-up and multi-stakeholder process within the OECD Water Governance Initiative, are conceived of as voluntary methodologies to be carried out at country, region, basin, and/or city levels to improve water policies. The indicator framework is composed of a traffic light system based on 36 input and process indicators and a checklist with questions on a number of more specific governance conditions. The framework concludes with an action plan to help prioritise steps towards better design and implementation of water policies.