Table of Contents

  • Introduction

    This report presents different institutional options for managing public environmental expenditure programmes with a focus on the water sector in four OECD countries: Austria, Belgium (the Region of Flanders), France and Germany. The analysis uses the Good Practices for Public Environmental Expenditure Management (PEEM), a performance review framework developed by the OECD.

  • Austria

    The Austrian case study describes the role that the Kommunalkredit Public Consulting GmbH (KPC), a 100 per cent subsidiary of a bank specialised in public finance, plays in managing the federal public expenditure scheme for environmentally-related water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure.

  • Belgium (Flanders)

    The Belgian case study focuses on the investment structure of wastewater treatment in the Region of Flanders in Belgium. The institutional solution involves a partnership between public and private actors. A differentiation is made between wastewater treatment at the supra-municipal (regional) level and the responsibilities for public sewerage systems at a municipal level.

  • France

    The French water services system is, to a great extent, financially self-supporting through two main charges. The French Water Agencies (Agences de l'eau) collect revenue generated from a water abstraction charge (redevance prélèvement) and a water pollution charge (redevance pollution) and then re-allocate the revenue to finance investments in water infrastructure. The French case study will analyse this self-supporting environmental expenditure programme looking at the experience of the Water Agencies in the country.

  • Germany (New Länder)

    The German Unification of 1990 revealed the inadequate water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure that existed in the new Länder. In an attempt to improve water environmental quality and foster regional development, a variety of public expenditure schemes were established. One of these was the local authorities loans programme (Kommunalkreditprogramm) managed by the government-owned German Bank for Reconstruction (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau – KfW). This programme ran from 1990 to 1993. The programme will be analysed in detail in the following sections.