Critical review of public-public partnerships in water services

The writing on public-public partnerships (PUPs) regarding commercialization of water services is arguably the most prolific in PUPs literature, but tends to uncritically celebrate initiatives and gloss over ambiguous conceptual frameworks, particularly with regard to assumptions about the meanings of 'public.' Authors often use similar terminology to describe very different phenomena without a consistent research methodology. This paper analyses available partnership arrangements, discusses advantages and critiques of the PUP model, and considers the emergence of Water Operator Partnerships. It undertakes a literature review to reveal problematic trends and to advance understanding and practice of public alternatives in the water sector

A Critical Review of Public-Public Partnerships in Water Services

There is a profusion of literature on the commercialisation of water services around the world, but relatively little of this research speaks of alternatives to privatisation. The literature that does exist tends to be scattered in its regional and thematic orientation and inconsistent in its analytical frameworks. The writing on public-public partnerships (PUPs) is arguably the best known and most rigorous of this literature, but even this is relatively thin, with a tendency to uncritically celebrate PUP initiatives and to gloss over ambiguous conceptual frameworks. This paper provides a critical review of the PUPs literature, in part to reveal some of these problematic trends, but ultimately in an effort to advance our understanding and practice of public alternatives in the water sector (and beyond). Specifically, it analyses the different partnership arrangements available, discusses the advantages and critiques of the PUP model in both theoretical and practical terms, and considers the recent emergence of Water Operator Partnerships (WOPs)