Safe drinking water— Dr HK Goswami

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says 1.1 billion people, or 18 per cent of the world's population, lack access to safe drinking water. Water-related diseases account for 80 per cent of illness and deaths in developing countries. By 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will lack clean and safe drinking water. Thirty-two countries, including India, face water stress and scarcity. There is now little chance of achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing by half the number of people requiring safe drinking water in the world by 2015, despite the investment of millions of dollars in water in the past three decades.It is significant that the last five decades show major global shifts in approaches to water management. The first, in the 1950s and 1960s, saw increasing reliance on technology, accompanied by increased investment in infrastructure. Water was still considered a State responsibility. The second shift, initiated in the 1970s, was corporatisation. Around the world, water departments were turned into separate State-owned water companies and boards. The tap water in homes was irresistible and catchy symbols of progress made possible by modern science. The uncritical celebration of science and technology, however, had its fallout. It almost obliterated long-existing traditional knowledge and water-management practices. Communities, alienated from local water,- ceased to own and take care of water systems; notions of shared responsibility were replaced by the idea that the environment was someone else's responsibility.The most definitive shift occurred in 1992, treating water as an economic good. The Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development (January 1992), spelt out a new definitional architecture : 'water has an economic value in all its competing use and should be recognized as an economic good." This principle was expanded in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) or the First Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janerio, where it was declared that, "Water should be regarded as a finite resource having an economic value with equal social and economic implications regarding the importance of meeting the basic needs."The definitional shift had immediate consequences. Stopping free water supply, imposing user fees, promoting sale of water and re-engineering of water utilities were all advanced on the principle of water as an economic good. The economic view resulted in changing the thrust of water providers from service provision to revenue generation with reduced budgetary support, gradual withdrawal of subsidies and phasing out of public water utilities.The World Water Council projected that $1 trillion in new investment was required to ensure water supply to all. Since many governments could not raise this, the prescription was to privatize water. The private sector was projected to bring in latest technology, critical investments and essential management practices leading to greater economic efficiency, stabilized rates, reduced public debt and improved management.Water utilities and departments were rapidly dismantled, particularly in Latin V, America, where many water multi-nation companies won contracts. But, the private sector both failed to deliver fresh investment, or improve efficiency, and caused acute water crises. Even the World Bank records that private financing accounts for under 10 per cent of total investment in water over the last decade. Overseas Development Assistance has also been only a minor source of funds for the water sector.The report, “Pipe Dreams” (2006) of the UK-based World Development Movement records that in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and East Asia, only 6,00,000 new household connections, or 900 per day, have been provided by the private sector since 1997. But, the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by half the number of people requiring safe drinking water by 2015 will require 30,000 new water connections daily between 2005 and 2015.Thus, the assumption that privatization would increase efficiency was belied. A 2002 11 World Bank sponsored study by Eastache and Rossi of 50 companies in 29 countries confirmed that there is no significant difference in the efficiency of private and public companies. Meanwhile a new enterprise, Public Public Partnerships (PUPs) have produced astonishing results in many places in Latin America and is slowly making their way into Asia and Africa ' seriously challenging the dominant hegemony of the notion of “Public Private Partnership, the main institutional mechanism by which development is being pushed in developing countries.PUPs are not theoretical constructs. PUPs emerged in. Latin America as a means to finding positive solutions by promoting institutional cooperation, collaboration and consultation between successful public utilities and other utilities which need help. PUPs also arose from the demand of citizens groups to be partners in utility reforms.Inspired by the PUPs revolution, the United Nations incorporated the substance of PUPs into a new institution called the “Global Water Operators Partnership.” (GWOP) in 2007. The UN pointed out that 90 per cent of the world's piped water is publicly owned and managed and even small managerial improvements could yield major benefits. The UN Secretary General's Board recommended a structured programme of cooperation among water operators, based on “mutual support and on a not for profit basis.” source: assam tribune