To achieve universal access to water, what matters is the political will, the quality of partnerships and the professionalism of those involved. Yet, few schemes have succeeded in providing water to poor people on a sustainable basis.

A report from the Water Engineering and Development Centre in the UK analyses drinking water access programmes provided by public-private partnerships (PPPs) in poor neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

In Port-au-Prince two thirds of the population live in poor neighbourhoods and only five percent of households have access to piped water. Many of the city’s 2.5 million inhabitants survive on incomes of only US$1 a day, and cannot afford to connect to the network or subsequently pay the state utility CAMEP’s charges. Most poor households buy water from those who are connected or from tankers.

In Buenos Aires there is a huge contrast between prosperous neighbourhoods and areas inhabited by the 2.5 million people living below the poverty line. The state utility, which once saw itself as a pioneering public service combining a range of initiatives, failed in its objective to provide universal access to water. Water tariffs were set too low to recover costs and large numbers of poor households are now illegally connected.

The authors describe how in both cities, services have been provided to significant numbers of previously excluded urban populations. Key features include:

• CAMEP has set up public taps managed by neighbourhood committees, which have taken responsibility for ensuring that beneficiaries pay for the water they use.
• Once it was demonstrated that poor people would pay their bills, CAMEP was able to persuade better-off neighbourhoods to meet the costs of supplying water.
• Although the Argentinian private company hired to supply water was not obliged to provide piped water to poor communities, it established a poverty unit that led to expansion of services: today a quarter of once excluded households participate in the project. 

The success of the programmes depended on:

• the political will of the public authorities
• the confidence that decision-makers, managers or regulators developed in the  programmes’ long-term social objectives
• using language familiar to technicians to describe the ‘social engineering’ required to work with poor neighbourhoods
• involving communities in management and the distribution and payment of bills
• the growing realisation that poor people were willing to pay for regular and affordable services.

Source(s):
‘The Real Obstacles to Universal Access to Drinking Water in Developing Countries’, Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) by Sarah Botton, Alexandre Brailowsky and Sarah Matthieussent, 2005 Full document.

id21 Research Highlight: 05 December 2006

Further Information:
Sarah Botton
Laboratoire Techniques Territoires et Sociétés
Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
6 et 8 Avenue Blaise Pascal - Cité Descartes
F 77455 Marne la vallée Cedex 2, France

Tel: +33 (0) 6 86 43 98 42
Fax: +33 (0) 1 64 15 36 00
Contact the contributor: sarah.botton@laposte.net

Water Engineering Development Centre, Loughborough University, UK

Sarah Matthieussent
Groupe de Recherche et d'Echanges Technologiques (GRET)
211-213 rue La Fayette
75010 Paris, France

Tel: +33 (0)1 40056161
Fax: +33 (0)1 40056110
Contact the contributor: gret@gret.org

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