Dr Christelle Pezon is the instructor of the 2022 spring seminar on “the governance of water services around the world” of the Paris School of International Affairs (SciencesPo).
Throughout the 12 sessions, students are exposed to the diversity of water policies adopted around the world, and the decisions politicians are confronted with to develop or maintain highly capital-intensive networked water services.
12 guests have been invited to lead a session focused on the specificities of a governance model in a given country across Europe (France, Great Britain, Italy), Latin America (Argentina, Brazil), Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana and Senegal) or India; or discuss particular issues related to the aid paradigm influenced by the main development partners.
Julia Boulenouar (Aguaconsult) and Marieke Adank (IRC WASH) were invited to design and deliver a session on the role of data in decision-making and accountability, building on the work carried out by Aguaconsult for the Osprey Foundation and Stanford University since 2020. The session took place on March 9th and provided students with a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between evidence and decision-making in the water sector as well as real-life experiences from Sierra Leone and Ghana to disentangle factors at play in explaining the use of evidence.
With thanks to students for this thoughtful and thought-provoking questions, we really enjoyed putting our thoughts together to deliver this session and hope the conversation will continue on this fundamental topic.
