46 The Future of Water in African Cities
sary level of specialization. However, in most African countries, it has also resulted in poorly coordinated planning for water supply management and poorly defined roles and responsibilities. In water-scarce and financially stressed African cities, the ramifications of this lack of coordination and conflation of roles have been a lack of strategic planning and accountability. Steeped in an assumption of abundance in the former restricted-growth urban environments of the colonial era, the planning, construction, and management by the public sector—at relatively low cost—of centralized city water supply schemes were believed sufficient to secure water availability. In these past urban environments, this centralized approach adequately served the requirements of an urban elite, and to some extent of the poorer communities (Bloch, 2012). In modern African cities, however, informal settlements have grown rapidly, and many people live outside the formally planned urban system. Water supply systems and the institutions that manage them face significant challenges to adapt to the greater fluidity this requires. In today’s African city, centralized systems do not reach substantial parts of the urban populations who live in growing peri-urban settlements. The IUWM paradigm has provided some models for the broader, more integrated approaches required in this dynamic environment (Bloch, 2012). Good governance is a critical component to any water management agenda. Institutions need to be accountable and clear about their roles. The criteria for priorities should be made clear. Local governments, regulatory authorities, utilities, and so on should receive (financial) resource allocations that correspond to the responsibilities conferred upon them by central authorities. Sustainable finance is necessary, including adequate cost recovery from tariffs or taxes. Financially, most African city governments or water companies are not fiscally strong or self-sufficient, and for many the transfers of tax revenues they receive from higher tiers of government are not adequate or sufficiently predictable to compensate for insufficient tariff revenues. The result has been underinvestment, inadequate maintenance, and deterioration of assets. In the absence of clear incentives to deliver responsive services, revenue management to enhance local and/or utility financial sustainability has also been weak. Good governance policies and strong finance must be accompanied by the tools and capacities with which to make the policies work (Butterworth et al., 2011). This will require the development of appropriate legislative, planning, implementation, and management tools, as well as the introduction of mechanisms to manage increased revenue for