Seminario: "Gestión territorial y autogobierno indígena"

1. Struggles for
Water Justice in
Latin America

2. Public and “Social-Public”
Alternatives to Commercial Models
of Water Delivery

3. Carlos Crespo, Marcela Olivera, Susan Spronk
Municipal Services Project
Cochabamba, India
Abril, 2010

4. Contents
1. Historical considerations
2. Data collection
3. Top five alternatives
4. Questions on criteria and comparisons

5. Historical considerations
Long history of revolution and struggle (1492-)
State-led development (1940s to 1970s)
Neoliberalism (1970s to present?)

6. Historical considerations
Result:
Highly urbanized (65% urban pop. by 1980)
Access to water in urban areas higher than in rural
Social movements have successfully “fought back”
in Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay

7. Data collection
o SURVEY:
o 62 contacts of water activists through the Red Vida
o INTERVIEWS:
o 17 interviews
o Meetings of Red Vida and Public Services International
(Colombia, May 2009)
o FIELDWORK
o Argentina
o Colombia
o Venezuela
o Bolivia
o LITERATURE REVIEW
o 34 of 181 peer-reviewed articles and books talk about
“alternatives”

8. Indicators used
1. Participation
2. Equity
3. Efficiency
4. Service quality
5. Accountability
6. Transparency
7. Working conditions
8. Sustainability
9. Solidarity
10. Public ethos
11. Transferability

9. Questions on criteria and comparisons
“Efficiency” and working conditions
• Tensions between social movements (users)
and public sector trade unions
Equity
• Endorsement of different solutions for rural
versus urban areas: “service apartheid”
Participation
• An end in itself or a means to an end?

10. diversity of actually-existing and proposed
alternatives to privatization in the water sector in
urban and rural areas in Latin America.

11. Defending the status quo
Since the 1960s, the “status quo” in the region for
water provision in urban areas has been decentralized
municipal-run public utilities which have budget
autonomy but are highly dependent on public funds.

12. While operations have been funded by tax revenue
and tariffs,
Defending the status quo

13. the expansion of water services has typically been
dependent on financing from bilateral and
multilateral aid organizations, including development
agencies [e.g. the German GTZ has been particularly
active in the Andes, see (Fritz, 2006)] and the
international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the
World Bank and the Inter-American Development
Bank.
Defending the status quo

14. Defending the status quo
Since the onset of neoliberalism, state-owned and
operated utilities have been under increasing pressure
by the IFIs to behave like private businesses by
adopting organizational models of service delivery
known as “corporatization”
model of service delivery is the degree of private sector
participation in the company

15. Defending the status quo
trade unions have played a protagonist role in
defending the status quo.

16. Since social movement organizations have been so
active in fighting the neoliberal water privatization
agenda in Latin America, the region is home to many
cancelled contracts

17. A preliminary analysis suggests that none of these
cases present successful alternatives as of yet, but are
best described as “works in progress.”
Cochabamba, La Paz, Santa Fe.

18. New forms of public service
delivery
Public-public partnerships (PUPs)
The initiative to promote public-public partnerships
has taken off quickly in the Latin American region.

19. The initiative was first timidly approached in 2004 in
Uruguay among conversations between the OSE,
FFOSE and members of the Coordinadora in Bolivia.
In August 2008 there was an event in Cochabamba
specifically about this issue and in May in 2009, the
principles were launched in Paso Severino Uruguay
New forms of public service
delivery

20. New forms of public service delivery
Civil society participation in large urban utilities
The water companies of Caracas, Venezuela and
Porto Alegre, Brazil have improved services by
democratizing decision-making rather than
adopting corporate practices

21. the institutionalization of popular participation in the
processes of budgeting, planning, and even execution
of water projects (particularly in the former case) has
contributed to increased coverage rates and involved
citizens in daily aspects of service delivery.
New forms of public service delivery

22. These successful experiences of participatory
decision-making demonstrate that involving users in
the planning and execution of water service delivery
can make water utilities more “efficient” in social
terms by making service provision more equitable.
New forms of public service delivery

23. New forms of public service delivery
Cooperatives
The cooperative model potentially presents an
alternative form of collective ownership that defies the
capitalist logic of private property.

24. Compared to private businesses or state-owned
utilities which are controlled by shareholders or
elected officials, cooperatives that provide basic
services have certain organizational advantages that
make them potentially more democratic.
New forms of public service delivery

25. Nonetheless, as the following case studies of water
cooperatives in Argentina and Bolivia suggest,
cooperatives face the same market imperatives as
private businesses and state-owned utilities,
especially given increasing pressures of
corporatization
New forms of public service delivery

26. New forms of public service delivery
Community-run water systems in rural areas
In many ways, providing potable water to rural
communities is a more challenging task than
providing water in urban areas due to high rates of
poverty and physically dispersed populations, which
makes the provision of networked infrastructure
more expensive and financing difficult.

27. According to the World Health Organization (WHO),
50 million people or 9% of the population of Latin
America and the Caribbean did not have access to
improved water supply, and 125 million or 23% did
not have access to improved sanitation.
New forms of public service delivery

28. As a percentage of the unserved population, rural
residents are over-represented meaning that access to
water and sanitation remains a problem in rural areas
of Latin America.
New forms of public service delivery

29. Community-run systems in peri-urban
areas
Given high rates of rural poverty,
rural-urban migration has kept state
water companies in Latin America
scrambling to keep up with growing
demand as cities have spread
outwards.
New forms of public service delivery

30. One of the major problems related to chaotic
urban growth in many of these cities is that
migrant populations have settled increasingly
precarious land, often establishing illegal
settlements climbing up the hillsides or next to
rivers that are prone to flooding.
New forms of public service delivery

31. In many of these areas, residents have come up with their
own solutions to the urban water problem, establishing
independent systems with little or no help from the state.
New forms of public service delivery

32. There are at least two factors that appear to
explain the emergence of communal water
systems in peri-urban areas: 1) weak (absent) state
and
New forms of public service delivery

33. 2) indigenous/campesino knowledge about water systems
that is transferred from rural to urban areas.
New forms of public service delivery

34. In both rural and peri-urban areas, these systems
often serve a dual purpose providing water for
both production (e.g. irrigation of crops, often for
household consumption) and reproduction (e.g.
drinking water for the household).
New forms of public service delivery

35. Peri-urban community water systems such as La Sirena in
Cali, Colombia and Asociación de Producción y
Administración de Agua y Saneamiento de Sebastián
Pagador (APAAS) in Cochabamba, Bolivia, provide high-
quality services for relatively low cost
New forms of public service delivery

36. ¡Gracias!
Hare Krishna
Thanks!