Jessica Budds

Are the debates on water privatization missing the point? Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America:

This paper has two principal aims: first, to unravel some of the arguments mobilized in the controversial privatization debate, and second, to review the scale and nature of private sector provision of water and sanitation in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Despite being vigorously promoted in the policy arena and having been implemented in several countries in the South in the 1990s, privatization has achieved neither the scale nor benefits anticipated. In particular, the paper is pessimistic about the role that privatization can play in achieving the Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of people without access to water and sanitation by 2015. This is not because of some inherent contradiction between private profits and the public good, but because neither publicly nor privately operated utilities are well suited to serving the majority of low-income households with inadequate water and sanitation, and because many of the barriers to service provision in poor settlements can persist whether water and sanitation utilities are publicly or privately operated. This is not to say that well-governed localities should not choose to involve private companies in water and sanitation provision, but it does imply that there is no justification for international agencies and agreements to actively promote greater private sector participation on the grounds that it can significantly reduce deficiencies in water and sanitation services in the South.

Payment for environmental services and unequal resource control in Pimampiro, Ecuador

Payments for environmental services (PES) schemes are widely promoted to secure ecosystem services through incentives to the owners of land from which they are derived. Furthermore, they are increasingly proposed to foster conservation and poverty alleviation in the global South. In this article, we analyze the social relations that have shaped the design, implementation, and outcomes of a PES scheme in Pimampiro, Ecuador. While previous studies describe this case as successful, we show that the PES scheme reinforces existing social differences, erodes community organization, undermines traditional farming practices, and perpetuates inequalities in resource access in the “working” landscape inhabited by the upstream peasant community paid for watershed management. We argue that PES schemes are thus not neutral initiatives imposed upon blank canvases, but intersect with existing development trajectories and power relations. We conclude that analyses of PES need to look beyond conservation to critically examine local resource management and distribution.

Ensuring the right to the city: pro-poor housing, urban development and tenure legalization in São Paulo, Brazil

São Paulo is one of Latin America’s most modern and developed cities, yet around one-third of its 10 million inhabitants live in poor-quality housing in sub-standard settlements. This paper describes the response of the São Paulo municipal government that took office in 2001. Through its Secretariat of Housing and Urban Development, it designed a new policy framework with a strong emphasis on improving the quantity and quality of housing for low-income groups. Supported by new legislation, financial instruments and partnerships with the private sector, the mainstays of the new policy are integrated housing and urban development, modernization of the administrative system, and public participation in all decision-making and implementation processes. The programmes centre on upgrading and legalizing land tenure in informal settlements, and regeneration of the city centre. The new focus on valuing the investments that low-income groups have already made in their housing and settlements has proved to be more cost-effective than previous interventions, leading to improvements on an impressive scale.

Water, Power, and the Production of Neoliberalism in Chile, 1973–2005

Chiles free-market economic and political reforms, designed and implemented under General Pinochets military regime (1973–90), have been important in discussions of neoliberal public policy and environmental governance. However, understandings of how and why these reforms unfolded often overlook the complex power dynamics involved. This paper examines the role of water in consolidating the design, implementation, and outcomes of Chiles neoliberal programme, through the contested production, retention, and reform of the 1981 Water Code. Drawing on the idea that water and power are mutually constitutive, it demonstrates the significance of the transition to private tradable water rights with minimal state regulation not only for changing social relationships with water, but also for consolidating the neoliberal programme and the ambitions of the military regime, government technocrats, and business groups. I make three related arguments: first, that water was more central to the formation and effectiveness of the neoliberal programme in Chile, and the ambitions of its core supporters than hitherto acknowledged; second, that political interest groups, and their alliances, can play crucial roles in neoliberalising nature; and third, that water reforms consolidate power relationships and produce waterscapes in particular ways.

Santa Cruz Declaration on the Global Water Crisis

At least one billion people around the world struggle with insufficient access to water. However, the global water crisis is not, as some suggest, primarily driven by water scarcity. Although limited water supply and inadequate institutions are indeed part of the problem, we assert that the global water crisis is fundamentally one of injustice and inequality. This declaration expresses our understanding of water injustice and how it can be addressed.

La demanda, evaluación y asignación del agua en el contexto de escasez: un análisis del ciclo hidrosocial del valle del río La Ligua, Chile

This paper examines the development of export-oriented agriculture and the allocation of water resources for irrigation in La Ligua river basin in Chile’s Norte Chico. The paper uses a theoretical framework within the political ecology tradition in order to approach questions of demand, evaluation and allocation of water resources, and related issues, and to show how they are shaped by social power relations. The paper highlights in particular how a hydrological assessment was used to respond to rapid and uncontrolled groundwater exploitation, which ultimately produced unequal outcomes among different farmers. The paper concludes that, to better understand issues around the allocation of water resources, the concept of the hydrosocial cycle is more useful than that of the hydrological cycle.

Advancing methods for research on household water insecurity: Studying entitlements and capabilities, socio-cultural dynamics, and political processes, institutions and governance

Household water insecurity has serious implications for the health, livelihoods and wellbeing of people around the world. Existing methods to assess the state of household water insecurity focus largely on water quality, quantity or adequacy, source or reliability, and affordability. These methods have significant advantages in terms of their simplicity and comparability, but are widely recognized to oversimplify and underestimate the global burden of household water insecurity. In contrast, a broader definition of household water insecurity should include entitlements and human capabilities, sociocultural dynamics, and political institutions and processes. This paper proposes a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods that can be widely adopted across cultural, geographic, and demographic contexts to assess hard-to-measure dimensions of household water insecurity. In doing so, it critically evaluates existing methods for assessing household water insecurity and suggests ways in which methodological innovations advance a broader definition of household water insecurity.