BOOK REVIEW by www.watermagazine.com
Water Privatisation: Trans-National Corporations and the re-regulation of the water industry
By Matthias Finger & Jeremy Allouche
Published by Spon Press & Taylor & Francis Publishing Group
Details: www.sponpress.com
This 300 page book was published in September 2001. It is a book about the evolution of water resources management in the age of globalisation. It highlights current trends in global water management, and outlines various approaches to getting these trends back under some form of public control.
In my opinion this is a useful, thoroughly researched and readable examination of the global history of water resources management, covering developments right up to the minute in Europe, the UK, the USA and developing world countries. It is essential reading for those designing water resources management policy at national level, water resource academics, and those keen to ensure that water resource management is subject to more than token public control.
The first 6 chapters describe the history, the players and the global situation down to country level. I found these chapters the best analysis and the most helpful exploration of the global water industry that I have read. The final chapter deals with strategies and options for the future which were of interest but lacked the depth of the preliminary analysis.
The book is written in the classic style of British socio-economic academic writing - bold and strong in its statements - backed up by in-depth research of the purposes and activities of major players in the industry including the World Bank, the largest transnational corporations involved in the water industry, and relevant NGO's.
The contents of the book include the following. (I have detailed some contents in chapters 1 - 3, and 7):
- Chap 1: Globalisation and the state's role in infrastructure development;
- Chap 2: Environmental pressures and the reorganisation of the water sector (Dublin, Selected author comments, water stress defined, GWP, WWC, IWRA, WCD, UNESCO, WMO, UNICEF, UNEP, etc);
- Chap 3: The World Bank's role and policy in water management (History, role of state in infrastructure, water as economic good, privatisation, decentralisation and user participation, the Ruhr-French model, Morocco, Yemen & Bangladesh);
- Chap 4: The emergence of public services TNCs and their strategies in the water sector;
- Chap 5: Water resources management in developing countries and Eastern Europe;
- Chap 6: Water markets in industrialised countries;
- Chap 7: Regulating the water industry - linking the global and the local (private sector involvement in water industry - irreversible trend, institutional arrangement for water regulation, local level operations - river basin management - national level regulation - competition regulation at global level);
- In addition the book contains dozens of useful tables, figures, and boxes; a comprehensive glossary of abbreviations and acronyms; appendicees describing the membership of various water organisations; a fifteen page bibliography; an index.
Quote from Chapter 1: "...TNCs can now also play a significant role in the international political scene by means of partnerships and other governance mechanisms. This same evolution can also be observed in the infrastructure, and especially the water sector, where TNCs, as we will show, have already acquired significant power over states thanks in particular to their good international relations with the World Bank...".
Quotes from Chapter 2: "...From our point of view, 1990 was indeed the turning point: at that moment, the international community realised that water could not addressed within the traditional development paradigm (eg, pumping more water and cleaning it), but that environmental factors had also to be considered..."
"One can thus note with astonishment that water protection, investor protection and world peace all go hand in hand when put under the auspicesof the World Water Council..."
"In other words the WCD (World Commission on Dams) has simply legitimised the construction of large dams, as long as they recognise and measure the social and environmental effects. The development of alternatives to dams and electricity consumption have either been ignored or dismissed..."
On the World Health Organisation: "...this means that health concerns in the water sector will more and more be addressed in a crisis mode, rather than a long term perspective, parallel to sanitation becoming increasingly important..."
"...As a matter of fact, the international organisations dealing with water are gradually being forced to choose between a humanitarian health-centered approach on the one hand, and an environment and development-centered approach on the other ... most are choosing the latter and thus are coming to work with the World Bank ... UNESCO is rapidly falling behind."
Quote from Chapter 3: "...the World Bank's concept of 'water resources management'. This concept is thus the combined result of two separate trends: on the one hand the trend to unbundle we have just discussed, and on the other hand the trend we discussed in Chapter 2, namely to consider water as an economic good. Both miraculously seem to reinforce each other and watewr resources management emerges as the miracle solution where there is no contradiction between environmental protection and water privatisation...".
"In fact, decentralisation is not defined by the World Bank in geographical, but in political terms: 'Decentralisation [is] the transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to subordinate or quasi-independent government organisations and/or the private sector'. The advantage of such a definition is that it can satisfy two types of critiques of government, namely the critique from the private sector on the one hand and the critique from civil society on the other. Both, to a certain extent, want power devolved..."
Quote from Chapter 7: "...Rather than lamenting such privatisation, we think that it is now time to pay attention to re-regulating the water sector, so that the worst effects of privatisation - namely inequities between the rich and poor, between the urban and the peri-urban and rural areas, as well as the negative environmental consequences - can be stemmed. ...".
The above quotes serve as a flavour. You need to get the book for more.
Water Privatisation is 272 pages long and is 234mm x 156mm. It was published on 14th September 2001 and retails at 60 pounds UK. The isbn is 0-415-23208-2. To order it readers should contact ITPS, Cheriton House, North Way, Andover, Hampshire SP10 5BE. Tel +44 (0)1264343071 or Fax +44 (0)1264343055. Books can also be ordered on their website at www.sponpress.com or by e-mail
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