Morocco's water resources are limited and increasingly polluted. Sound water management must combine cost recovery with meeting needs for drinking water, economic rationale (e.g., for irrigation), and sustainability. As an instrument, water pricing is unable to achieve all these objectives at once. In order for it to be effective, it has to be adapted and placed within the context of a coherent legal and institutional framework. In the case of Morocco, this has led to the 1995 Water Bill and the water basin agencies.