2 Enhancing integrity to improve service delivery in water service supply provision

Author: Francesc Bellaubi, Jan Teun Visscher

This paper addresses the experience of Transparency International (TI) exploring the integrity in water supply service provision (WSP) in Ghana, Kenya and Senegal as part of its “Transparency and Integrity in Service Delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa (TISDA)” project. WSP in Sub-Saharan countries are strongly affected by corruption practices and characterized by low performing water supply services. Despite a number of initiatives taken to overcome this situation including water sector reform, the problems persist better approaches are needed to fight corruption. The research undertaken by TISDA uses a case study approach to explore water system performance and integrity in terms of transparency, accountability, and participation (TAP). The case study looks at the relation between public officials, regulators, service providers and users in a specific governance-management model. Risk maps are used to assess the transactions between actors and its level of integrity in terms of TAP.  The first findings suggest that the methodology is suitable to analyze the complexity of WSP sector providing a good basis for TI for evidence based advocacy, creating opportunities for rapid change in terms of enhancing integrity and improving WSP performance.