Devolution and Accountability Effects in the Public Provision of Water Services in Indonesia

This paper separately evaluates how devolution and accountability, two distinct aspects of the decentralization reforms implemented in Indonesia in the year 2001, influenced the public provision of water services. Using household level data it is found that the devolution of responsibility does not necessarily affect the provision of public services. Our findings show that the quality of publicly provided water decreased only in cities in which devolution was accompanied by a change in accountability. Robustness checks suggest that these results are driven by changes in the accountability framework rather than trends in the health services.