A Review of Privatizing Water: Governance Failure and the World’s Urban Water Crisis by Karen Bakker. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.
In January of 2000, protests broke out in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in response to the skyrocketing price of water. Citizens saw their water bills triple or quadruple just weeks after the municipal water supply was handed over to a private company. Millions of poor city residents went on strike, shutting down Cochabamba for four days. The protesters called for universal water rights, using slogans like “Water Is God’s Gift and Not A Merchandise,” and eventually succeeded in forcing the government to revoke its hated legislation.
The Cochabamba protests are part of a global campaign for a human right to water. Vandana Shiva, a vocal opponent of water privatization, has said that “buying and selling [water] for profit … denies the poor of their human rights.” Conversely, institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have vigorously urged developing nations to privatize, asserting that market strategies can most efficiently extend water to the poor and ensure water conservation. The introduction of private management to the water sector during the past two decades has generated fierce, polarizing controversies worldwide.
Rather than beginning from a pro- or anti-privatization stance, in her 2010 book, Privatizing Water: Governance Failure and the World’s Urban Water Crisis, Karen Bakker argues that the public-private water provision binary is flawed, and that conventional models of government, private, and community water provision have failed to extend quality, affordable water to the urban poor. However, Bakker shows how “ecological governance” can be an effective strategy to sustainably provide water to underserved urban communities. With over a decade of experience in the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia and consulting on water governance for the United Nations Development Programme, Bakker is well-positioned to bring conceptual rigor and informed perspective to her exploration of the urban water policy debate.
Privatizing Water is divided into two parts. The first half analyzes the public-private arguments central to the water management debate, and emphasizes how the inability of state, private, and community institutions to consider the needs of all citizens is to blame for the urban water crisis. In part two, Bakker evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of alternative strategies to public and private water provision. In exploring these issues, Bakker uses case studies from Jakarta, Indonesia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to illustrate the challenges of equitably providing water to the urban poor.
Two central research questions inform Bakker’s analysis. First, why has privatization emerged as a widespread model for water management, and what are the arguments for and against water privatization? And, since private and state policies have not succeeded in bringing water to the urban poor in developing countries, what might be the alternatives?
Bakker first reframes the water supply debate by disrupting the neat categories in which “public” and “private” have been presented in conversations about water management in the western world. She shows how networks of urban water provision in developing nations consist of government, corporate, small-scale businesses, and community-based modes that meld together and intersect, creating complex water supply systems that blur the simplistic public-private binary. Furthermore, Bakker scrutinizes definitions of water as a “public” or “private” good. While people should not be excluded from water because it is essential for life, unlike unlimited public goods like oxygen or public radio, water can become depleted if its usage is not regulated.
While privatization and public water provision have conventionally been juxtaposed as alternatives, the two sides are now at a stalemate. Privatizing Water shows that, while privatization was a response to inefficient government policies that failed to deliver water to the urban poor, private companies have been largely unable to improve the situation. For instance, throughout the 20th century, the government in Jakarta, Indonesia expanded its water networks to upper class residential areas, while excluding low-income neighborhoods from access. After the private sector took over Jakarta’s water in the 1990s, 75% of new water connections went to commercial and high-end properties. In Jakarta, like many cities in developing nations, public and private institutions have employed top-down decision-making that fails to consider the basic needs of the population. In particular, public and private sectors have systematically excluded the marginalized urban poor from access to affordable water by spending public resources on the wealthy minority. In so doing, both sectors have also neglected issues of public health and water pollution. Neither public nor private water management is a panacea to the global water crisis.
With these challenges laid out, Bakker considers alternative water provision strategies including the human right to water and community water management. While the campaign for a human right to free water is politically mobilizing, Bakker argues that this ideology is individualistic and might not be sustainable. For example, while South African human rights activists complain that 25 liters of free water per person per day is inadequate, the government defends water tariffs and tariff meters as the only practical solution to supply “water to all” without depleting the nation’s limited water resources. And though activists like Shiva claim that water should be made free for subsistence uses, Bakker shows how the human right to water is politically difficult to implement and may be environmentally unsustainable.
Additionally, there is nothing inherently inclusive or democratic about community-based water management, which is often hierarchical and burdens the poor with the costs of supplying their water. Though anti-privatization proponents emphasize the need for community control of water, Bakker reveals that this approach has limitations because it can exclude outsiders from access to water and also condones government neglect of the urban poor.
Ultimately, Bakker argues that “ecological governance” makes environmental sustainability an important consideration in political efforts to justly provide water to urban residents. In this model, the state has a role in ensuring universal water provision and the private sector has a role in offering its market expertise and innovative technologies. An important part of this alternative is to recognize the right of the urban poor to access basic services, and also to give decision-making power to communities. Thus, efforts to solving the urban water crisis should incorporate the strengths of governments, communities, and the private sector.
While Privatizing Water lacks neatly packaged solutions, Bakker’s analysis gives hope that more equitable urban water distribution is possible. The book’s strong conceptual framework and use of memorable case studies makes it an invaluable academic resource for those seeking to understand alternative water provision strategies from a vantage point that transcends the stale public versus private water debate.