Project

Risk-pooling and institutional innovation for sustainable water service transitions (RiskPOOL)

In the face of global challenges such as climate change, innovation in water services is urgently needed. Institutional innovation is happening on a large scale, in which hybrid institutions emerge, which share risks between private, public and community actors. Advancing institutional theory of risk, the range of choices these risk-pooling actors make are exposed. The global set-up of this project, the attention for the urgent transition to a more sustainable society and the focus on joint learning will make sure the project results in new insights in the design of the water utilities of the future.

ABSTRACT

One quarter of the world population is without safe drinking water. As existing utilities struggle to make sufficient progress towards the water SDG by 2030, decentralised water utilities are emerging as possible solutions with hybrid governance arrangements facing varying environmental, financial, operational and social risks. Pooling risks through collaborative arrangements between public, private and community actors represents both a dilemma and an opportunity for institutional innovation where competing logics around risks are assembled to be solved in a common effort to increase sustainability. How hybrid institutions pool these risks across different configurations of public, private and community
management remains an important knowledge gap – theoretically as the
relationship between risk and institutional innovation is not fully understood
and empirically as the outcomes that such emerging utilities produce have not
yet been examined systematically. The main objective of this project is to
advance institutional theory of risk, drawing on Ostromian theory on
institutional diversity and Douglas’ cultural theory of risk. Bridging these
theoretical perspectives will lead to better understanding how hybrid
institutions pool risks and how this process of risk-pooling impacts the
sustainability of water services in terms of equitable, efficient and
enforceable outcomes for society and the environment. I will conduct (1) a
global survey and create a database of decentralised water utilities to define
key institutional design principles of hybrid arrangements, (2) in-depth
interviews with hybrid water utilities from the Global South and North to
examine risk-pooling capabilities, and (3) case-study research to evaluate
sustainability outcomes in terms of uptake by users and in policy. A
comparative assessment of risk-pooling in hybrid water utilities across the
Global South and North will highlight the differences and similarities in
risk-pooling strategies and their effect on institutional design, thus informing
policy and practice towards sustainable and safe water for all.