Public Water and COVID-19: Dark Clouds and Silver Linings

Abstract

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has forced human societies around the world to take extraordinary steps to stop the spread of the virus. Although initially positioned as “the great leveler” that does not recognize any distinctions or boundaries, in jumping geographical, political, racial, and class divisions, the virus has put into sharper relief many prevalent structures of privilege. The new regime of sanitation, restricted mobility, isolation, restrictions on work, and livelihood strategies reveal that some are better placed to afford these and avoid the virus than others. Although the global message is that “we are all in this together” (p. 51), the situation on the ground reveals the structural precarity that poor and marginalized communities around the globe are prey to in their everyday lives. The pandemic has both revealed and exacerbated these inequalities. Public Water and COVID-19 effectively highlights the significance of water and sanitation in combating the pandemic and the critical role of water service providers. More specifically, the book narrates the “‘good news’ story” that public water operators have not only dealt with the pandemic more “effectively and fairly” than private water providers, but also opened up “possibilities for improved democratization and equity-oriented services in the future” (p. 14), as the case studies of National Network of Community Aqueducts in Colombia (Chapter 6), Hamburg Wasser (Chapter 14), and Eau de Paris (Chapter 16), among others included in the book, prove. Private-sector water providers, on the other hand, “tend to be more expensive, less accountable and less interested in long-term investments” (p. 7). The book argues that public water providers, guided by an ethos of collective good and community service, respond well to the challenges of COVID-19 compared to private water companies driven by the market logic of profit.