This issue of Network Industries Quarterly is devoted to water utilities, their governance and their performance. With growing urbanization, pollution and water stress, utilities are ever more challenged to provide safe and affordable drinking water in an ecologically sustainable manner. Are they and will they in the future be up to the task? What is and should be the right size to do this? What is and should be the best governance of them (ownership, legal structure, regulation) to make sure that they can deliver? What is and should be the most appropriate articulation between governance of the water resource and governance of the utility? These are some of the questions that the four papers seek to address. The examples the authors refer to pertain mainly to Latin America, namely Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.