1

Water management :

Partnership between state and

community in Cochabamba

Sabine Hoffmann, PhD student at IHEID

sabine.hoffmann@unige.ch

2

Plan :

Water management

• Context

• History

• Future

sabine.hoffmann@unige.ch

3

State service

Features

• Structural deficit (covered 87% of costs 2001)

• Taken out debt (30 million US$, 2005)

• Inefficient management

• High rate of physical and commercial water loss (55 - 63 %, 2005)

4

Community services

Common features

• Social unity, though with divisions

• Social organisational model based on principle of reciprocity

• Collective and individual rules

• Internal authority

• Low rate of physical and commercial water loss (5 - 10 %, 2005)

5

Services étatique privé (citerne) communautaire

Nombre 1 ~ 230 ~ 200

Population [%] 48 ~ 25 ~ 21

Quantité [l/p/j] 111 33 67

Prix [US $/m3] 0.4 2.5 0.16

Number

State

dl/p/d

Price

Private (tank) community

6

Taux d’espérance de vie

67 ans 47 ans

Taux de mortalité enfantine

45 décès/1000 enfants nés 145 décès

Life expectancy rate

Child mortality rate

Deaths / 1000 babies born deaths

7

Causes of the ‘water war’

Law and the concession

• Exclusive right to provide service (monopoly)

• Compulsory connection to network

• No recognition of right to provide community services within a concession

• Price increases (35 - 100 %)

8

Amendment of the law

The new law • Abolition of exclusive rights to provide services

(monopoly)

• Recognition of right to provide community services within a concession

Ending the concession

9

State- community joint

management:

SEMAPA

• Extending main lines

• Selling water « wholesale »

Community organisations

• Installation of secondary networks

• Water management

10

State- community joint management:

SEMAPA

• Credits

• Solvency and profitability

• Economic viability

• Reduction of extension and administrative costs

• Reduction of water loss

• Maximisation of earnings

11

State- community joint management:

Community organisations

• Reciprocity

• Eco-sociale rationale

• Reduction price of water

• Improvement water quality

• Increase water quantity

• Reasonable demand

• Monetary and non-monetary resources