In the 1990s Argentine authorities believed that privatisation would provide adequate water and sanitation services in poor areas. However, provision to sparsely populated areas peripheral to urban settlements proved difficult. It is now clear that extending services requires partnerships between communities, the private sector, regulators and municipal authorities.

A report from the International Institute for Environment and Development –Latin America (IIED-América Latina) discusses the importance of partnerships between communities, municipalities and the private sector in providing basic services in Buenos Aires.

Argentina rushed into restructuring and privatising water. Municipal governments, communities and trade unions were excluded from the designing process and awarding of long-term concession contracts. Water privatisation followed the structure that civil servants and politicians were familiar with – monopoly control by a single provider and a highly uniform standard of service. As in other sectors, regulatory bodies were only set up after services had been transferred to private operators.

The concession model has failed to realise intended benefits, mobilise necessary financial resources and serve low-income groups. In the municipality of Moreno, a poor outlying district of Buenos Aires, the private consortium which took charge in 1999 has failed to extend water and sanitation services to poor neighbourhoods. It is contractually exempted from having to provide services in areas without legal land tenure.

The great majority of Moreno’s residents 350,000 residents have overflowing unlined cesspits and depend on contaminated groundwater. The concession holder cannot guarantee good quality services even to the minority of the population who are connected to its network – they complain of water pressure problems, incorrect billing, poor water quality and dubious sewage treatment. It is thus unrealistic to expect extension of formal water and sewerage services to the large number of unserved settlements.

In a search for sustainable water and sanitation solutions IIED-América Latina has been working as facilitator between residents of low-income neighbourhoods, the government, water companies and non-governmental organisations. The agency has been pioneering a model of participatory-based management and seeking to:

• make the level of service set out in the concession contract more flexible and responsive to poor people’s needs
• overcome sectoral separation and fragmentation of water and sanitation policies
• develop long-term municipal policies that are based on consensus among all the actors and which improve the quality and extent of service provision
• build a participatory diagnosis and a water and sanitation map as a tool for guiding action
• create a local supervisory and advisory agency which includes representatives of all the key actors
• expand the partnership to include a broad set of actors such as independent water and sewerage networks, government schools, municipal soup kitchens and health clinics.

Amidst a background of economic crisis in Argentina, development of the project’s partnership-based management unit has faced difficulties. Participation of both the regulator and the concession holder has been intermittent. Nevertheless, the initiative in Moreno has shown the need for:

• citizens to organise themselves and exert pressure to bring about better governance and management of water and sanitation services
• partnerships to become formal institutions if they are to ever break the linkages between poverty and lack of adequate services
• a legal framework to guarantee the expansion of urban services to the most vulnerable citizens.

Currently the project is in its second phase, organising and institutionalising the local advisory and supervisory agency to deal with water and sanitation problems in a participative and integrated manner.

Source(s):
‘Governance for water and sanitation services in low-income settlements: experience with partnership-based management in Moreno, Buenos Aires’, Environment & Urbanization, vol 17, no 1, pp 183-199, by Ana Hardoy, Jorgelina Hardoy, Gustavo Pandiella and Gastón Urquiza, April 2005

Funded by: PPPUE-UNDP

id21 Research Highlight: 14 November 2005

Further Information:
Ana Hardoy, Jorgelina Hardoy, Gustavo Pandiella and Gastón Urquiza
International Institute for Environment and Development -América Latina
General Paz 1180
Capital Federal (1429)
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tel: +54 47035014 / 47032894
Fax: +54 47012805
Contact the contributor: iied-al@iied-al.org.ar; ahardoy@iied-al.org.ar; jhardoy@iied-al.og.ar;

International Institute for Environment and Development - Latin America

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