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Springs of Hope
Alternatives to Privatization & Commercialization of Water in Asia
Mary Ann Manahan, Focus on the Global SouthSeptember 15, 2014
CONTEXT
Asia’s High Growth? Economic miracle?
• Asians living in extreme poverty has not changed in three decades – they number 1.1 billion in 2008 as they did in 1981!
• ADB’s revised definition of extreme poverty rate in developing Asia-Pacific peg it at 49.5% in 2010
Jobless growthPublic services still a big
problem
Access to Water & Sanitation
• Universal & Equitable access still big problem
– SEA- 30-75% water supply coverage
• Rural vs. urban supply and coverage• Sanitation is a big challenge: 1.74
billion without access in Asia• Transboundary water issues and
challenges of water resource management/watershed protection
Water Resources Profile in Asia
• Asia is well endowed with water resources but monsoon cycles can induce large inter-seasonal variations in river flows
• Significant variations across the sub-regions- Central, South, Southeast and East.
• Amount of water per capita per day (available water) also varies: Central and East and South Asia lower levels than global average; Southeast Asia, more than twice.
• 27 Asian countries adopted the UN Resolution on the right to water & sanitation but only few countries implement it
• Heavy reliance on PPPs & privatization as model of water service provision and resource management
• IFI’s influence in policy
• Rise of Asian private water companies & public companies acting like private
• Impacts: high prices, inequities, corruption, corporate & regulatory capture
Right to Water & Sanitation vs. Privatization & Commercialization
Climate Crisis & Asia’s Water
• Asia as hotspot for ‘water wars’: transboundary issues
• Energy-water nexus• New forms of enclosures
through the ‘Green economy’
• Climate financing & push for more privatization
On the upside…• Global rethink of
privatization • Privatization is not
irreversible
• Remunicipalization trends
• Successful struggles against privatization and commercialization of water: what’s next?
RECLAIMING, REDIFINING & RE-IMAGINING PUBLIC WATER
Preliminary Profile of Water Utilities in Asia
Sub-region No. of Water Utilities Listed
No. of Utilities
with Data
Average No. of Service
Connections
Average No. of People Served
Central Asia 3 3 103,056 1,238,865
East Asia 8 8 961,361 5,052,414
South Asia 13 13 320,590 3,685,044
Southeast Asia 622 147 61,731 243,046
Total 646 171 12,4963 799,881
Water Utilities in Asia: Mostly Public in Nature
Source: Buenaventura, Batistel, Manahan, “Spring of Hope” in Alternatives to Privatization: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South , 2012.
Criteria to Consider when Discussing Alternatives (based on Municipal
Services Project)
• Participation• Equity• Efficiency• Quality• Accountability• Transparency
• Workplace• Sustainability• Solidarity• Public Ethos• Transferability
• Scale: large-scale centralized utilities to decentralized ones; community-level
• Political, socio-cultural context • Institutional requirements• Governance structures • Replicability
Alternatives Vary
Reinvigorating Public Water Systems
• Existing public modes of water service delivery that were no longer appropriate for the service improve their systems through PuPs or Public-community partnerships
• Some Forms/Examples:– Cooperation between water utilities and non-profit
organizations, residents to deliver service in urban, slum communities (e.g. Tinagong Paraiso-Bacolod City Water District in the Philippines)
– Strengthening labor-management cooperation within a public utility (e.g. technical and management training for managers and workers of water service providers through benchmarking in the Phils)
• New forms of local cooperation and not-for-profit partnerships between and among public water operators, communities, consumers, trade unions and other key groups
• Public Public Partnerships (PuPs), Public-Community Partnerships, Community-Community Partnerships: public as people (People-People Partnerships) not only state or government
• PUPs as one form or way of democratizing water & tool to implement the HR to water & sanitation
• PuPs came from the water justice movements and through the work of the Reclaiming Public Water network
Innovative Models of Public Service Delivery
• Not Private or Old-Style Public (corrupt, inefficient, un-transparent)
• Forms/examples:– Strengthening of public water utilities through a
strong public ethos and pro-worker workplace (e.g. Bangkok’s Metropolitan Waterworks Authority)
– Democratization experiments in Tamil Nadu- India – Upstream-downstream cooperation/multipartite
cooperation to protect watersheds (e.g. Sibalom watershed in Antique vs. mining )
– Co-management to solve water use, access and conflicts/competing rights
Associative/Cooperative/Community- Managed Water Systems &
Partnerships• Bridges the gap in water service provision in
Southeast and South Asia, especially when central public utilities could not provide water to them
• Self-help initiatives and organizing of ‘waterless’ communities
• Often, are confronted with the challenge of no support from the local or national government; community assumes risks and investments
• Even in privatized set up, community initiatives are ensuring that water services remain in the public or community control and domain
Example: Bagong Silang Community Water Service Cooperative in the west zone of
Metro Manila, Philippines
• Community-based water system, managed by water users
• Ensured a cheaper, safe, clean drinking water for urban poor households through a cooperative, democratic control and peer-level monitoring and enforcement of rules
• Supported by a local NGO- provided trainings/capacity building
How to make sense of these alternatives?
Challenges
Stronger, reliable,
sustainable public & communit
y water systems
Democratic water
governance
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR LISTENING!
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