Development Aspects Impressum Editors

Exogenous factors

As part of the analysis, the following exogenous factors were identified as having an impact on the provision of drinking water supply and sewerage services in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires:

• 
  The macroeconomic context
  

• 
  The national investment policy for that sector
  

• 
  Poverty and ability to pay
  

• 
  The quality of institutions
  

• 
  International arbitration
  

• 
  The change of corporate strategy by the Suez Group.⁸
  

Exogenous factors are, by their very nature, impossible to control directly, and the actors of the drinking water supply and sanitation sector are passively subjected to the conditions and decisions of the wider context. However, in the areas of policy- making and institutions, as well as in service management and business decisions, it is possible to take preventive measures to mitigate the impact of exogenous factors.

As stated in an ECLAC study⁹:

“It must be recognized … that many factors which impinge on operations are external to any reasonable definition of the area of direct responsibility of water system management. Nevertheless, the impact of many of these

5. 
   See, for example, in from www.psiru.org/sites/default/files/2003-01-W-Suez.doc
   
6. 
   ECLAC (1989), La gestión de los recursos hídricos en América Latina y el Caribe (Management of water resources in Latin America and the Caribbean). Estudios e Informes de la CEPAL, No. 71, LC/G.1523-P, Santiago, Chile.
   

‘external factors’ can be mitigated or magnified by management action. Only too commonly, management actions, or the lack thereof, have exac- erbated rather than reduced the influence of unfavourable external condi- tions… While management may be no more responsible for inflation than it is for wet or dry years, it nonetheless does have a responsibility to protect the water system from negative external impacts. All too often, however, water managers remain passive … in the face of the threats posed by ex- ternal forces to the effective operation of the water systems for which they are responsible… The existence of factors over which water managers have no direct control does not mean that management should be passive to- wards them. It appears to be true that the managers of water systems are rarely passive in response to the impact of natural events on water systems, although the damage caused is not always repaired. In the same way, man- agement must not be passive in the face of disinterested or short-sighted government policies and decisions.”

1.