Cover -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Governance, good governance and urban governance -- Local, informal, needs-driven, practice-based governance relationships and arrangements -- The case of technical water committees in the Caracas Metropolitan Region -- Investigating urban governance for better water provisions -- Overview of the book -- Chapter 1: Urban Governance and Water Supply Systems -- 1.1. Urban Governance and Neoliberalism -- Neoliberalism and the city -- Urban governance within the neoliberal project -- 1.2. Urban Governance and Service Delivery -- Neoliberalism, structural adjustment and the city -- Structural adjustment and the delivery of urban services -- Urban service delivery and community involvement -- Informal systems of access to urban water services -- Institutionalised co-production of water services as a way forward -- Chapter 2: Assessing Urban Governance: A Principle Perspective -- 2.1. Urban Governance Assessments -- 2.2. Urban Governance Index (UGI) Principles and Indicators -- UGI principles -- 1. Effectiveness (including: efficiency, subsidiarity and strategic vision) -- 2. Equity (including: sustainability, gender equality and intergenerational equity) -- 3. Participation (including: citizenship, consensus orientation and civic engagement) -- 4. Accountability (including: transparency, rule of law and responsiveness) -- UGI indicators -- 2.3. Qualitative Applicability of the UGI to Institutionalised Co-production for Water Services -- Effectiveness -- Equity -- Participation -- Accountability -- Chapter 3: Co-producing Water Services in Venezuela -- 3.1. Operational and normative framework for water supply in Venezuela -- Institutional framework for water provisions -- Water service provision organisation and distribution -- Actors involved in the water sector in Venezuela.

3.2. Technical Water Committees as drivers of "institutionalised co-production" -- Technical Water Committees (Mesas Tecnicas de Agua - MTA) -- Technical water committees as alternative governance arrangements for the "institutionalised co-production" of water services -- Water Community Councils, National Water Meetings and Cooperatives -- Chapter 4: Applying the Urban Governance Index to Institutionalised Water Service Co-production -- 4.1. Water service co-production within two low-income settlements -- The Caracas Metropolitan Region and the Tuy Valleys -- Overview of infrastructure for water delivery in the Tuy Valleys -- Hacienda el Carmen in the Paz Castillo municipality -- Paso Real 2000 in the Cristóbal Rojas municipality -- 4.2. A Multi Level Mixed Model Design -- Phase 1: Municipal level of analysis -- Phase 2: Community level of analysis -- Phase 3: Meta-inferences from the two units of analysis -- Chapter 5: Assessing Urban Governance for Water Services at the Municipal Level -- 5.1. Poor effectiveness within an incomplete decentralisation process -- Subsidiarity of authority and availability of sufficient resources and autonomy (decentralisation process) -- Political and legal aspects -- Administrative aspect -- Fiscal aspect -- Institutional efficiency in delivering public services and responding to civil society concerns and welfare -- 5.2. Equity in water provision policies with disparate results in water access -- Policies, processes, tolls and mechanisms for access to basic services (distributional equity) -- Right to water -- Pro-poor access to drinking water -- Direct access to water (piped connections) -- Pro-poor pricing -- Equity in decision making - participatory governance (procedural equity) -- Incentives for the development of formal/informal systems and arrangements to access water services -- Procedural equity.

5.3. Democracy under tension ... -- Representative democracy -- Participative democracy -- 5.4. Accountability defied by weak municipal autonomy -- Downward accountability: accountability of municipalities to civil society -- Chapter 6: Low-income Communities' Involvement in Local Governance for Improved Water Provisions -- 6.1. Effectiveness of urban governance on the ground: case by case -- Effectiveness in the delivery of safe drinking water and in enhancing community development -- Improved water provisions and community awareness -- Enhanced community development -- Effectiveness in responding to civil society concerns -- 6.2. Micro-inequalities leading to spatial fragmentation -- Distributional equity: access to basic services -- Distribution of water improvements -- Meeting community's values for water -- Needs for water improvements -- Willingness to pay -- Equity in water supply -- In kind contributions -- Water cost structure and payment collection -- Procedural equity (decision-making process) -- 6.3. Efficient informal participation -- Participative democracy -- Dwellers' knowledge about MTAs and condominiums -- Participation in MTA meetings -- Community involvement in the network construction -- Collaboration between the municipality, the water company and the technical water committees -- Representative democracy -- 6.4. Does accountability meet effectiveness in water delivery? -- MTA accountability to community members -- Transparency -- Integrity and responsiveness -- Institutions accountability to the MTA, and vice versa -- Chapter 7: Conclusions -- 7.1. Urban governance at the municipal and settlement levels -- Effectiveness: Subsidiarity of authority, sufficient resources and autonomy -- Effectiveness: Institutional efficiency in delivering public services and responding to civil society concerns and welfare.

Equity: Distributional equity -- Equity: Procedural equity -- Participation: Participative democracy -- Accountability: Downward Accountability -- 7.2. Placing urban governance for water services in perspective -- Normative and operational challenges -- Decentralisation and centralisation tendencies -- Formal and informal relationships and agreements -- 7.3. Applying the UN-HABITAT Urban Governance Index -- Experience with the assessment tool -- Policy implications and input for future developments -- Settlement unit of analysis -- Qualitative methods -- Normative framework -- Bibliography -- Annex 1: List of interviews -- Annex 2a: Community members' responses to interviews in the Hacienda el Carmen settlement -- Annex 2b: Community members' responses to interviews in the Paso Real 2000 settlement (Terraza 11) -- Annex 3: Calculation of the UGI indicators in the Paz Castillo and Cristóbal Rojas Municipalities.