Before 2010, Paris’s water service was provided by four entities:  two private companies, Suez and Veolia; SAGEP, a public/private company using public drinking water infrastructure, and a public laboratory in charge of water safety. This situation diluted responsibility and hiked the price of water for users. That is why the Paris municipality decided to fully remunicipalise and reintegrate water services, at the end of the current contracts EDP captures, produces and distributes 170 million cubic meters of drinking water a year for 3 million users.

EDP began operating Paris’s water systems in January 2010 with a fully integrated water management, from source to tap. From the first year, the structural savings of about 30 million euros per year made it possible to lower the price of water by 8%. Today, this price is still lower than it was before 2010. EDP also ensure a concrete right to water through free public fountains in public spaces, cooperation with associations supporting homeless people and refugees, and partnerships with social landlords.

EDP has adopted environmental management practices in all the natural spaces it manages and supports many farmers in setting up sustainable farming practices, that are useful for water quality.

“What EDP tells us is that a public company can be a pioneer in ecological transition, internal democracy (anti-discrimination, gender equality) for workers, with very high levels of transparency and accountability. This is not merely a case of remunicipalisation but an example of how a new generation of public companies can work.”

– Evaluator Satoko Kishimoto

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Paris, France: Eau de Paris delivers cheaper, cleaner water under remunicipalised utility appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Johannes Euler: In Cochabamba, Bolivia, the lack of water has caused conflicts for decades. In 1999, Cochabamba’s public water supplier, SEMAPA, was leased to the international consortium Aguas del Tunari. The major shareholder of the consortium was the multinational company Bechtel. In the course of the privatization procedures, independent water and irrigation systems and autonomous water services were threatened with expropriation. Water prices rose steeply as a result. In response, several civil society groups formed the “Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida” (Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life). Protests against these policies were fierce, lasted several months, and raised the issue to national and international levels.

Eventually, Aguas del Tunari was expelled. Control of SEMAPA was transferred to representatives from the municipality, the trade union, and the Coordinadora (though these arrangements have subsequently changed). The statutes of the hybrid company were rewritten in a challenging participatory process, but SEMAPA is still known for its lack of efficiency and transparency. Moverover, the state is currently trying to extend its sphere of control into the water sector. However, the so-called Cochabamba Water War contributed to major changes in Bolivia’s water sector, the respective laws, the establishment of a national Ministry of the Environment and Water, and of the country as a whole.

Key points of Bolivian policy reforms sparked by the Cochabamba Water War:

• In 2000, the pro-privatization Law 2029 was canceled and rewritten as Drinking Water and Sanitation Services Law (2066). It was the result of negotiations between social movements and the state during the water wars. It recognized marginalized communities’ rights to use water and differentiated them from capitalist activities, which had to be authorized and were subject to fees.
• In 2004, similar principles were applied to the irrigation sector (Law 2878), which recognized decentralized irrigation governance. Both laws support indigenous people and farm laborers from being dispossessed of water. At the same time, they contributed to the formalization of water management, which tends to favor commercial management over community management.
• The Bolivian constitution was changed in 2009. Prior to 2009, water supply concessions could be granted for up to 40 years. The new constitution considers water a basic right of life and bans the typical methods of privatization and leasing of water services to for-profit entities.

Sustainability and public participation are declared to be the responsibility of the state as well as universal access to water. To which extent these intentions will actually be reflected in reality remains to be seen, however. The responsibilities coming with this basic-rights approach demand action by the state and challenge community management at the same time.

Learn more from:

• Article on water laws in the Andes

Header image by kris krüg on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The post How a water war in Bolivia led to the reversal of privatization appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Jakarta’s governors have traditionally been (quietly) supportive of ending water privatization in the city, and in 2013, the governor of Jakarta heeded residents’ calls and declared a plan to take over water services from the private sector. Public water company PAM Jaya demanded a contract renegotiation with the private water operators, and the provincial government of Jakarta announced a plan to purchase private water operators’ shares. In 2013, the provincial house of representatives approved a budget for PAM Jaya to proceed with share repurchase.

One particularly effective strategy in November 2012 involved residents, represented by legal aid organisation LBH Jakarta, filing a citizen lawsuit against water privatization in Jakarta. Amrta Institute supported the challenge with evidence for use in court. This long and successful legal challenge played a major role in maintaining political pressure.

The labor union’s demonstration in front of Palyja’s office, in the elite buildings of Central Jakarta, April 2011

The backdrop to this – two decades of failed water privatization in Jakarta and half the population having no piped water – led the Amrta Instite to run public media campaigns, produce popular publications about the issue, and make documentaries.

At first most people were not aware that water problems were the result of privatization, and that the solution was to return water services to public management. But now we have decisions from three courts supporting public water management; the Constitutional Court decision, Central Jakarta District Court decision and Supreme Court decision. In October 2017, the governor told the media that he will implement the court decision.

A woman who was washing in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, admitted that the cost to buy water consumed almost 70% of her husband’s income.

“The most impressive thing is that the initiative did not give up fighting against systematic/structured powers – from domestic to international, from governments to corporations – which look impossible to challenge.”

– Satoko Kishimoto

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit amrta-institute.org

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Jakarta: Movement against Water Privatization appeared first on P2P Foundation.