Abstract

ROMERO LANKAO, Patricia. Decentralization and State Withdrawal: Mechanisms for a Sustainable Management of Water?. Gest. polít. pública [online]. 2007, vol.16, n.1, pp.29-59. ISSN 1405-1079.

Mexico's water policy has been dramatically reformed over the last dozen years. Center-pieces of the reforms are new legal regimes, different roles for water authorities and a decentralized management of water resources. Water reform is based on a vision of water as an economic good, and its uses are driven by market dynamics. Rather than keeping its role as developer, the State is responsible for allocating and regulating water uses. This paper has a two-fold purpose. First, it aims at assessing the pros and cons of neoclassic economics, which has exerted a deep influence on the water reform. Second, it uses some indicators of performance (e.g. investments and fees) to evaluate some results of the water reform. It shows that water reform has been relatively successful in some economic respects (e.g. reduced govern-mental investments). Yet less attention has been paid to key issues such as access to the re-source by different sectors (equity) and the environmental impacts of water systems.

Keywords : water reform; neoclassic economics; water management; decentralization.

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