Governance challenges in water data management: Insights from the application of the practitioner governance assessment tool in Palestine

• Effective policy instruments and actor motives drive effective data management • Limited resources and undervalued data reduce priority for data management • Restrictive governance hinders data management and informed decisions • Governance fragmentation and siloes hinder data sharing and collaboration • Technical solutions alone cannot ensure effective water data management As data becomes increasingly crucial for the water sector, understanding the governance context surrounding its management becomes essential. In Palestine, the Water Sector Regulatory Council was established as part of the broader sector reform, with a mandate to monitor the performance of water service providers through its database system. We apply the practitioner version of the Governance Assessment Tool to assess how the governance context supports or hinders the implementation of the water data management requirements within the water sector reform. Four criteria (completeness, coherence, flexibility, and pressure for change) were used to assess the governance context along four dimensions (actors and networks, problem perceptions and goal ambitions, strategies and instruments, and responsibilities and resources). The results indicate that governance context supports the implementation of requirements through the policy instruments developed for this purpose, the stakeholders’ flexibility and their pressure for change. Resources and responsibilities are the most hindering, primarily due to financial limitations, institutional fragmentation, and the political conflict. A lack of cross-organizational collaboration and limited awareness of the strategic value of data among service providers also hinder water data management. The study reveals that technical solutions alone are insufficient; they should be equipped with sustainable resources and strategic alignment across actors.