This Working Paper is part of the activities of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network. It is composed of three (previously published) articles focused on critical aspects of the new wave of privatization policies implemented worldwide, broadly speaking, since the start of the 21st Century. The first article, by David Hall and Emanuele Lobina, examines the crucial issue of funding needs and “realities”, in relation to water and sanitation services. It exposes the myth that the private sector has been or could be the main source of funding for the universalization and long-term maintenance of these essential services, and demonstrates that historically all countries have relied fundamentally on public funding to achieve their goals in this sector.
In Article 2, the same authors explore the conflicts emerging from the privatization policies promoted worldwide, focusing on the roles of local and global private corporations. The article explores a range of conflicts arising globally around the control of water resources by private corporations, and the roles and strategies of international financial and development institutions and other global actors, including their roles in mopolizing the production of knowledge about the planet’s water resources.
Article 3 by David Hall looks at the controversial topic of corruption in public services, which is normally presented in the mainstream literature as a public sector problem, which often demonizes public sector institutions as part of the strategies taken by these actors to promote privatization of essential services and other activities. The author examines a wide range of corruption cases and dismounts the arguments that cast corruption as being an inherently public-sector problem and promote privatization as a strategy to introduce “transparency” and “accountability”
