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!

www.focusweb.org

www.municipalservicesproject.org