Originally published August 30 2005
How privatization gets water to the poor
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey examines Fredrik Segerfeldt's new book, "Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the World's Water Crisis."
Yet more than a billion poor people in the world today lack access to safe drinking water.
Among things that would most benefit the world, safe, clean drinking water is clearly a high priority, as pointed out by the Copenhagen Consensus organized by skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg in 2004.
In 2003 the U.N.'s World Water Development Report estimated an annual shortfall of $110 billion to $180 billion in investments needed to provide access to safe water to the poor in the developing world.
In his excellent new monograph, Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the World's Water Crisis, Swedish analyst Fredrik Segerfeldt makes the case that water privatization can go a long way toward quenching the thirst of the poor.
Segerfeldt points out that public water systems in developing countries generally supply politically connected wealthy and middle class people, whereas the poor are not hooked up to municipal water mains.
Segerfeldt cites one study of 15 countries that found that in the poorest quarters of their populations, 80 percent of the people were not hooked up to water mains.
So far, only 3 percent of the poor in developing countries get their water from private-sector water systems.
However, these initial projects have provoked an outcry by anti-privatization activists around the world against a "global water grab" by giant corporations.
The price of piped water increased from 15 cents per cubic meter to almost $1, but as Segerfeldt correctly notes, "before privatization the majority of Guineans had no access to mains water at all.
Segerfeldt cites other successful privatizations in Gabon, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Morocco.
But given the often corrupt governments with which corporations must deal, it's not surprising that privatization can be done very badly.
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