Access to safely managed drinking water is a key target of the Sustainable Development Goals, yet progress toward this goal remains highly uneven across countries. While governance is widely recognized as an important driver of improvements in drinking water services, its role in achieving safely managed drinking water, which requires sustained service quality, continuity, and on-premises access, remains insufficiently understood. This study examines the relationship between public sector governance and access to safely managed drinking water using an unbalanced panel of 64 countries over the period 2000–2023, drawing on data from the WHO–UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme and the Worldwide Governance Indicators. Panel data methods are used to distinguish short-term within-country changes from long-run cross-country differences, while accounting for dynamic persistence. The results indicate that short-term improvements in regulatory quality and government effectiveness are not significantly associated with contemporaneous changes in access to safely managed drinking water. In contrast, countries with higher long-run average levels of governance exhibit substantially higher access. Dynamic estimates further reveal strong persistence in water service outcomes, suggesting pronounced path dependence. These findings imply that governance influences safely managed drinking water primarily through long-term institutional accumulation rather than rapid policy reforms.

Authors:
Ni Made Deva Ariani, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia
Heni Wahyuni, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia

About the Presenter(s)
Ni Made Deva Ariani is a Master’s student in Development Economics at Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. Her interests are development economics and public policy, and her current project examines cross-country access to safely managed drinking water

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ni-made-deva-ariani

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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