Organizational Modes and Water Service Performance: A 1995–2025 Meta-Analysis and Implications for PPPs and Regional Multiservice Companies (SRMs) in Morocco
Keywords:
PPP; delegated management; SRM; yardstick competition; Morocco
Abstract
Across LMICs, water governance varies; Morocco combines public régies, ONEE, delegated PPPs, and new SRMs, complicating evidence on “what works”. Following PRISMA, a meta-analysis (1995–2025; 173 studies; 742 effects) harmonized efficiency, access, quality, equity, environmental, and governance outcomes with moderators. Pooled results favor PPP/delegated modes for efficiency (g≈0.22) and modestly for access and quality; equity tends negative; environmental effects are near zero. Regulatory capacity, KPI breadth, and yardstick competition strengthen performance; ownership alone is not decisive. In Morocco, SRM regionalization should embed transparent benchmarking and social tariffs to balance efficiency with inclusion.
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References
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2. Bakker, K. (2010). Privatizing water: Governance failure and the world’s urban water crisis. Cornell University Press.
3. Bartik, T. J. (2012). The future of state and local economic development policy: What research is needed. Growth and Change, 43(4), 545–562.
4. Begg, C. B., & Mazumdar, M. (1994). Operating characteristics of a rank correlation test for publication bias. Biometrics, 50(4), 1088–1101.
5. Bozeman, B. (2007). Public values and public interest: Counterbalancing economic individualism. Georgetown University Press.
6. Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2009). Introduction to meta-analysis. Wiley.
7. Cheung, M. W.-L. (2014). Modeling dependent effect sizes with three-level meta-analyses: A structural equation modeling approach. Research Synthesis Methods, 5(3), 219–232.
8. Cour des comptes (Royaume du Maroc). (2014). Rapport sur la gestion déléguée des services publics locaux. Cour des comptes.
9. Demsetz, H. (1968). Why regulate utilities? Journal of Law and Economics, 11(1), 55–65.
10. DerSimonian, R., & Laird, N. (1986). Meta-analysis in clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials, 7(3), 177–188. S
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12. Duval, S., & Tweedie, R. (2000). A nonparametric “trim and fill” method of accounting for publication bias in meta-analysis. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 95(449), 89–98.
13. Egger, M., Davey Smith, G., Schneider, M., & Minder, C. (1997). Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. BMJ, 315(7109), 629–634.
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18. Helm, D. (2010). Government failure, rent-seeking, and capture: The design of climate change policy. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 26(2), 182–196.
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29. Marin, P. (2009). Public–private partnerships for urban water utilities: A review of experiences in developing countries. PPIAF/World Bank.
30. OECD. (2015). The OECD Principles on Water Governance. OECD.
31. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.
32. Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: Polycentric governance of complex economic systems. American Economic Review, 100(3), 641–672.
33. Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., et al. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ, 372, n71.
34. Pustejovsky, J. E., & Tipton, E. (2022). Meta-analysis with robust variance estimation: Expanding the range of working models. Prevention Science, 23(3), 425–438.
35. Roehrich, J. K., Lewis, M. A., & George, G. (2014). Are public–private partnerships a healthy option? A systematic literature review. Social Science & Medicine, 113, 110–119.
36. Shleifer, A. (1985). A theory of yardstick competition. RAND Journal of Economics, 16(3), 319–327.
37. Stanley, T. D., & Doucouliagos, H. (2014). Meta-regression approximations to reduce publication selection bias. Research Synthesis Methods, 5(1), 60–78.
38. Tipton, E. (2015). Small-sample adjustments for robust variance estimation with meta-regression. Psychological Methods, 20(3), 375–393.
39. Vevea, J. L., & Hedges, L. V. (1995). A general linear model for estimating effect size in the presence of publication bias. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 20(4), 337–349.
40. Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package. Journal of Statistical Software, 36(3), 1–48.
41. Williamson, O. E. (1985). The economic institutions of capitalism. Free Press.
42. World Bank. (2018). Morocco: Second Water Sector Development Policy Loan—Implementation completion and results report. World Bank.
43. World Bank. (2023). Morocco Water Security and Resilience Program (Program Document). World Bank.
Published
2025-12-07
How to Cite
Elouafai, M. C., & Azegagh, J. (2025). Organizational Modes and Water Service Performance: A 1995–2025 Meta-Analysis and Implications for PPPs and Regional Multiservice Companies (SRMs) in Morocco. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 48, 196. Retrieved from https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/20407
Section
ESI Preprints
Copyright (c) 2025 Mohamed Charaf Elouafai, Jalal Azegagh
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
