Drinkable water crisis is since the seventies a concern shared worldwide, especially in developing countries urban areas. Since the early eighties, international organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGO) are leading several initiatives trying to solve the problem within frameworks involving central states (between developed and developing countries), and by the early 90' between local authorities in the framework of decentralized cooperation. The goal of this paper is to show that public-private partnerships model involved by the World Bank and the IMF in developing countries have shown their limits in urban services management, drinkable water particularly. We assume that an alternative model based on decentralized cooperation and a strengthening of local authorities capabilities may widen quality water access in low prices, especially for poor citizens. Our analysis will be organized around institutional economics and collective action theories in order to analyse socio-economics dynamics in drinkable water issues for developing countries.