Water Supply and Health: e1000361

Hunter, Paul R; MacDonald, Alan M; Carter, Richard C . PLoS Medicine 7.11 (Nov 2010): e1000361.
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Abstract (summary)
TranslateAbstract The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water-supply and Sanitation (JMP), which monitors progress on the MDG water supply target, identifies three categories of drinking water supply: (a) water piped into the dwelling, plot, or yard; (b) other improved sources (including public taps, protected springs, hand pumps, and rainwater harvesting); and (c) unimproved sources (open water, unprotected from contamination) [6]. [...]it is clear that many uncertainties remain about how to improve public health through improvements in the water supply. [...]more and better research is desperately needed, in particular larger and longer double-blinded randomized controlled studies of the health impacts of water supply and quality interventions at the community and household level.

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TranslateFull text Turn on search term navigation Citation: Hunter PR, MacDonald AM, Carter RC (2010) Water Supply and Health. PLoS Med 7(11): e1000361. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000361 Published: November 9, 2010 Copyright: 2010 Hunter et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: There were no external sources of funding. This paper was written whilst the authors were fully funded by their primary employers, which had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: PRH is chair of the board of directors of the Institute of Public Health and WaterResearch, Texas A & M University; chairs the science advisory council for Suez Environment; and has done consultancy work for Danone bevarages. Neither of the other two authors have any competing interests to declare. Abbreviations: DALY, disability-adjusted life year; GDP, gross domestic product; JMP, WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water-supply and Sanitation; MDG,

Millennium Development Goal; NGO, nongovernmental organization; WSP, Water Safety Plan Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed. Summary Points * A safe, reliable, affordable, and easily accessible water supply is essential for good health, but for several decades almost 1 billion people in developing countries have lacked access to such a supply. * A poor water supply impacts health by causing acute infectious diarrhoea, repeat or chronic diarrhoea episodes, and nondiarrhoeal disease, which can arise from chemical species such as arsenic and fluoride. It can also affect health by limiting productivity and the maintenance of personal hygiene. * Reasons for the limited progress towards universal access to an adequate water supply include high population growth rates in developing countries, insufficient rates of capital investment, difficulties in appropriately developing local water resources, and the ineffectiveness of institutions mandated to managewater supplies (in urban areas) or to support community management (in rural areas). * Strenuous efforts must be made to improve access to safe and sustainable water supplies in developing countries, and, given the health burden on the public and the costs to the health system, health professionals should join with others in demanding accelerated progress towards global access to safe water. This is one article in a four-part PLoS Medicine series on water and sanitation. Introduction A safe, reliable, affordable, and easily accessible water supply is essential for good health. Yet, for several decades, about a billion people in developing countries have not had a safe and sustainable water supply. It has been estimated that a minimum of 7.5 litres of water per person per day is required in the home for drinking, preparing food, and personal hygiene, the most basic requirements for water; at least 50 litres per person per day is needed to ensure all personal hygiene, food hygiene, domestic cleaning, and laundry needs [1]. This domestic water consumption is dwarfed by the demands of agriculture and ecosystems, even in wealthy countries where per capita domestic water consumption greatly exceeds these figures [2]. To cover all these requirements and to avoid water stress, experts generally agree that about 1,000 cubic metres of freshwater per capita per year is needed [3].

A key target of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7, which aims to ensure environmental sustainability, is "to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015" [4]. This water supply target underpins several other MDGs, including those relating to poverty (MDG1), education (MDG2), and gender equality (MDG3). In particular, it underpins MDG4, the reduction of child mortality, because many deaths in young children in developing countries are due to diarrhoeal disease, and unsafe water is a key risk factor for diarrhoeal disease in this age group [5]. The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water-supply and Sanitation (JMP), which monitors progress on the MDG water supply target, identifies three categories of drinking water supply: (a) water piped into the dwelling, plot, or yard; (b) other improved sources (including public taps, protected springs, hand pumps, and rainwater harvesting); and (c) unimproved sources (open water, unprotected from contamination) [6]. JMP assumes that "improved" water should be available not only for drinking but also for food preparation and personal and home hygiene, but it provides no official definition of how near a water source should be to a dwelling to be called improved. However, a distance of <1,000 m has been suggested as an appropriate distance for meeting the MDG targets [7]. In poorly served countries, achieving the MDG water supply target will involve increasing water availability for domestic uses, improving water quality, and bringing about changed water-use and water-management habits. In the wealthy countries where adequate quantities of domestic water are already available on demand, the main task over the next few years will be to sustain water quality given the increasing pressures of pollution. However, global water supply targets need to be tempered by a recognition of the real demand (as expressed in user willingness and ability to pay), which may be less ambitious than the internationally agreed target. Furthermore, account needs to be taken of the realities of frequently poor levels of functionality. It is relatively easy to increase coverage through construction of water supply systems, but it is much more difficult to ensure that such systems continue to provide service over the long term. We therefore argue in this paper for a serious commitment by national governments and their partners to ensure adequate water supply services for all (the MDG target, if met, would still leave 672 million people with an unimproved supply [6],[8]). In addition, we call for increased attention to be paid to ensuring continuing service provision. This will mean finding new ways to enhance public demand for improved services (that might translate into a willingness to pay), and a public and private sector ethos that puts high value on the quality of construction and ongoing service delivery.

Water Supply and Health Inadequacies in water supply affect health adversely both directly and indirectly (Box 1 and below). An inadequate water supply also prevents good sanitation and hygiene. Consequently, improvements in various aspects of water supply represent important opportunities to enhance public health. Box 2 lists six attributes of domestic water supply that determine whether it is effective in the preservation of good health [14]. Box 1. The Classification of Water-Related Disease The standard classification of water-related disease was first proposed by David Bradley [9] (Table 2). Although there have been suggested improvements since [10], none have gained as much recognition as the original system, probably because they are less focused on disease transmission mechanisms. Although this four-part classification has served a useful role in highlighting some of the public health impacts of inadequate water systems, it has also directed attention away from some other important health issues, namely: * There is no room in the classification for chemical-mediated diseases such as arsenic and fluoride poisoning, which have major impacts in certain localities [11],[12]. * The classification takes no account of the impact on health of the need to collect and transport water for many of the world's population. For example, many children and women in developing countries have to carry heavy containers of water long distances each day, and there have been no systematic studies about the impact this has on musculoskeletal health. * The long walks needed to collect water may also increase the spread of certain infectious diseases though a community. For example, an epidemic of meningococcal disease in a Sudanese refugee camp seemed to spread along the routes that people take to collect their water [13]. * Unpleasant tastes or odours (for example, arising from iron content of groundwater, or associated with chlorination) in water supplies that are microbiologically safe may act as a deterrent to use of safe sources, so exposing users to health risks associated with unprotected water sources. Box 2. Six Factors That Determine Whether a Water Supply Can Maintain Good Health Effectively

The quality of the water relates to pathogens and chemical constituents in water that can give rise to both diarrhoeal and nondiarrhoeal disease. The quantity of water available and used. This is largely determined by (a) the distance of carry involved, where water has to be transported (often on the heads or backs of children and women), and (b) the wealth of the user. Access to water may be primarily a matter of physical distance or climb, but it may have socioeconomic and/or cultural dimensions if certain social groups are denied access to particular water sources through cost or culture (see Figure 4). The reliability of both unimproved and improved water supplies. Many cities in Asia, for example, supply pipedwater for only a few hours per day, or for a few days in every week and many unimproved rural water supplies dry up regularly. The cost of water to the user. This is represented by the cash tariff that is paid to a utility or provider or, in the case of unimproved water supplies, by the time and health penalty paid by the user. The ease of management for the end user. In urban utility-managed supplies the user merely pays a tariff; in rural settings in developing countries, users are expected to play a major part in operation, maintenance, and management. Water, Diarrhoea, and Infant Mortality Investigations of the costs and health benefits associated with improvements to drinking water supply in low-income countries have concentrated almost exclusively on how these improvements affect the incidence of acute infectious diarrhoea [15]-[17]. This focus is not surprising given that diarrhoeal disease is the second most common contributor to the disease burden in developing countries (as measured by disability-adjusted life years [DALYs]), and poor-quality drinking water is an important risk factor for diarrhoea [18],[19]. Most of the excess disease burden in developing countries falls on young children--17% of all deaths in children under 5 years are attributed to diarrhoea [15]. Figures 1 and 2 illustrates how an inadequate water supply is a contributor to deaths in children under 5 years [18],[19]. It shows that both the gross domestic product per capita (GDP) [20] and the proportion of the population without access to improved water are highly correlated with infant mortality (p<0.001 for both). Both measures remain independent risk factors for infant mortality in a multiple predictor variable regression. While this analysis does not prove a direct causal relationship, since access to improved water services is likely to be accompanied by improvements in other services (such as sanitation), it is clear that a broad statistical

relationship exists between improved water services and lower infant mortality for countries of similar GDP. [Figure omitted, see PDF] Figure 1. Global association between national access to improved water source, GDP and infant mortality. Data sources [6],[20],[66]. [Figure omitted, see PDF] Figure 2. Association between national access to improved water source, GDP and infant mortality for Africa. Data sources [6],[20],[66]. The focus on acute diarrhoea, however, almost certainly underestimates the disease burden caused by inadequate water and sanitation. There is a strong link between repeat or chronic diarrhoeal disease, malnutrition, and the poor educational and physical growth that can seriously affect the ability of children to reach their full potential [21]. It has been suggested that if the impacts of these chronic effects are taken into consideration, the real global disease burden due to diarrhoea (and, consequently, the health benefits ofwater and sanitation interventions) would be about twice the current estimates, which are based only on acute illness and mortality [21]. The evidence that improving access to safe drinking water reduces the risk of diarrhoeal disease in children is strong. However, since the early 1980s and especially since Esrey's work in the late 1980s [22], there has been a heated debate over the relative importance of water quantity and water quality in reducing the incidence of diarrhoeal disease. The rather differing analyses of Esrey and subsequent workers have led to different emphases in water supply interventions--especially in regard to the role of point-of-use householdwater treatment technologies (see Text S1). Importantly, however, whatever intervention is introduced, recent evidence suggests that even occasional short-term failures in water supply or water treatment can seriously undermine many of the public health benefits associated with an improved water supply [23]. This evidence is not an argument against attempting to improve water quality, whether through community or household water treatment technologies, but it draws attention to the vital importance of developing systems that will continue to deliver safe water in the long term.

Drinking Water and Nondiarrhoeal Disease Inadequate access to safe drinking water is also associated with several nondiarrhoeal diseases [24]. Chronic or acute exposure to many organic and inorganic chemical agents has been implicated in adverse health effects that range from acute nausea and vomiting or skin rashes, to cancer and foetal abnormalities [24]. Inorganic pollutants in drinking water that have been linked with disease include arsenic, copper, fluoride, lead, and nitrate. Organic compounds that have caused concern include pesticides, chlordane, phenol, and trihalomethanes [24]. More recently, endocrine-disrupting compounds and pharmaceuticals in drinking waterhave been causing concern [25]. In the developing world, one of the most dramatic demonstrations of the link between drinking water and nondiarrhoeal disease is the arsenic crisis in Bangladesh [26]. Arsenic in drinking water can have substantial adverse effects on health, including skin cancer and gangrene [27]. The Bangladesh crisis occurred because boreholes constructed to provide people with clean drinking water often provided water with naturally high arsenic concentrations. Fluoride in drinking water is also causing increasing concern in the developing world. About 200 million people are at risk of exposure to elevated concentrations of fluoride in drinking water, which can lead to dental and sometimes skeletal fluorosis [12],[28]. Although the global disease burden estimates for nondiarrhoeal diseases associated with water supply problems such as these fall far below similar estimates for diarrhoeal disease [29],[30], the communities actually affected by these diseases can suffer severely. Indirect Links between Water and Health In addition to the direct health benefits of improved safe water supplies, there are many indirect benefits. For example, the strong relationship between water and livelihoods in all regions and economies of the world affects health indirectly. In developing countries, deficiencies in water supply, whether for productive or domestic uses, have direct negative impacts on livelihoods; in wealthier countries, past investment in waterinfrastructure and the ability to invest more in the present increase water security and, arguably, prosperity [31]. Lack of water can also lead indirectly to disease via malnutrition. Several authors argue strongly for investments in low-cost water harvesting techniques, irrigation, and clean water provision as a means of increasing food production and reducing infectious disease burden [32],[33]. Numerous examples exist across sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia in which access to a small amount of irrigated land has transformed food security for highly vulnerable households [34]. A study of child nutrition in otherwise comparable communities with and without access to irrigation in central Kenya found clear evidence that irrigation

contributed to higher energy intakes and reduced chronic malnutrition in children [35]. However, mixed conclusions were found in a study comparing households close to and distant from two dams in Burkina Faso [36]. Finally, improvements in water supply are essential prerequisites for improved personal and home hygiene and to enable sanitation facilities to be kept clean. Consequently, the direct health effect of improved water supplyis likely to be extended by its indirect effects on sanitation and hygiene. Economic Returns A recent study of the economic returns on investments in water supply and sanitation indicated that every US$1 spent on water supply and sanitation services could lead to an economic return of between $5 and $46, with the highest returns in the least-developed areas [16]. Much of this additional income was from the time saved by having reliable water close to the household. Other studies also suggest that investments in wateralleviate poverty [37],[38]. The balance of evidence favours the likelihood that water and sanitation interventions have economic benefits beyond those that simply relate to reduced health care costs. Indeed, it has been argued that adequate water and sanitation is an essential prerequisite to economic development. Thus, poor countries with access to improved water experienced average annual growth of 3.7% whereas countries with the same per capita income but without such access have an annual growth of only 0.1% [39]. Status and Trends Nowadays, many more people have an improved water supply, as defined by JMP [6], than in the late 1970s. However, this increased coverage has only just matched global population growth. The absolute number of people lacking access to an improved water supply has hovered around 1 billion since the late 1970s [6],[40]. Unfortunately, it is probable that the populations remaining to be adequately served (for example, in remote rural areas of lowincome countries and in the periurban slums of the world's towns and cities) represent the most intractable problems. The 1990 (base year for the MDGs) and 2008 (most recent) statistics on urban water supply show coverage rising from 95% to 96%, while the total urban population has grown over this period from 2.3 billion to 3.4 billion. In rural areas, the coverage estimates are 64% and 78% for 1990 and 2008, respectively, while the total rural population has grown from 3.0 billion to 3.4 billion (Table 1). Overall, 84% of people still not enjoying an improved water supply live in rural areas, but it is the urban areas that are struggling most to keep ahead of population growth rates, which are commonly double the national averages.

Table 1. Use of urban, rural and total improved water, 1990, 2000, and 2008, globally and regionally. Table 2. Water-related disease. With 2015 (the MDG target year) fast approaching, there is a heavy emphasis internationally on accelerating progress towards the coverage target. Nevertheless, this push needs to be tempered with realism and an emphasis on maintaining existing water supplies in a functional state. No-one wishes to see developing countries littered with defunct water supply systems as a legacy of the MDGs. Delivering a Better Water Supply In wealthy nations, high-quality water is universally available with large amounts of money being spent to assure reliable household supplies. In poorer countries, improved access to water is generally delivered through communally managed public water points in rural areas and unreliable distribution systems in towns and cities. Unfortunately, many water supply interventions in developing countries do not last [41]. In a recent study of 15 villages in South Africa with supposedly improved water supplies, three villages had insufficientwater because their wells had dried up or were incapable of meeting the demand [42]. Five more villages had no water on the day of inspection--two because their water pump had broken, two because there was no money to buy diesel for the pump, and one because the pump operator was ill. This example illustrates some of the challenges associated with keeping water supply systems working over the long term. Similarly, a study ofwater supplies and arsenic mitigation technologies in Bangladesh found that only about 64% of the interventions were operational [43]; other studies suggest that across sub-Saharan Africa about one third of hand pumps are nonfunctioning [44]. Unfortunately, in low-income countries, revenues recovered from the users of improved water supplies are frequently insufficient to meet the real running costs of both rural and urban water supplies, so systems either deteriorate or need to be heavily subsidized. It is important that user tariffs are affordable, but that promising approaches for improving revenue generation include finding ways to reduce or spread the costs of establishing house connections (in the case of urban piped supplies), developing microfinance instruments for rural user fees, and encouraging self-help and small enterprise-driven approaches. Nevertheless, there needs to be recognition that the true demand for improved services (expressed as willingness to pay) may not yet match the level of service being promoted through international targets such as those included in the MDGs.

There is increasing recognition of the part that self-help (self-supply) initiatives and small enterprises can play in delivering improved and sustainable water services. A recent review of water, sanitation, and hygiene for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation identified three broad approaches to service provision: (a) externally driven approaches (initiated by agencies other than the water users, and usually heavily subsidized); (b) self-supplyinitiatives (driven by user demand); and (c) enterprise-driven approaches, in which local private entities supplygoods and services to governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and water users directly [45]. The last two, which could be combined, represent very different approaches from the conventional, externally driven approach. However, a heavy dependence on "private" (mostly shallow groundwater) sources, which may be poorly constructed and vulnerable to contamination or failure during dry periods, has important health implications [46]. Over the last decade, debates about private sector participation and public-private partnerships for the improvement of water supply services have generated more heat than light. There is little doubt now that the private sector is unlikely to invest significant sums to modernize or extend water supply systems. However, this sector has always had an important role in the supply of goods and services, and in consultancy, supervision, and capacitybuilding. These roles are unlikely to disappear and we therefore take a pragmatic attitude to the involvement of the private sector: local context determines what arrangements work best [47]. In recent years, WHO has promoted the idea of Water Safety Plans (WSPs) [48]. A WSP is a risk-based approach to public health achieved through water quality and catchment management strategies under the slogan "managing drinking water quality from catchment to consumer." Although the WSP approach is widely utilised in urban piped supply systems, there have been few attempts to implement the approach in rural settings, where distant water sources are the norm [49],[50]. Constraints and Challenges Why the Slow Progress? Slow progress toward full water supply coverage at a national level [6] may be related to national GDP [20], government effectiveness [51], or shortages of water [52]. We have explored the relationship between these three variables and coverage by statistically analysing the most recent available global datasets [6],[20],[51],[52]. Unsurprisingly, given the small amounts of water needed for domestic use, the national availability ofwater resources was unimportant for water supply coverage. Its significance more locally is considered below. However, the proportion of people with access to safe water was

correlated with GDP (p<0.001) and government effectiveness (p<0.001). In a multivariate model, GDP remained the only significant independent covariate. Clearly, therefore, a low GDP is a major challenge facing efforts to improve water supplies. Below we discuss some of the other reasons for slow progress. Government Effectiveness Government effectiveness in low-income countries is often poor, and governments often lack capacity or show institutional weaknesses [53]. Such weaknesses range from lack of individual professional skills, understaffing, poor motivation, inadequate resources, and poor organisational management, through to inappropriate policies handed down to local government from central authorities. In addition, corruption has been highlighted as a major threat to service delivery [39]. Limited effectiveness of the Ministries and local government authorities responsible for water supply can be exacerbated by insufficient political commitment at the highest governmental levels and by the weaknesses of private companies contracted to carry out construction or system management. Furthermore, the professional and technical staff of central government and local authorities often find their own high levels of commitment constrained by the systems within which they work. Dissociation of the Health and Water Sectors In industrialised countries, much of the early drive to provide water and sanitation came from the medical community [54],[55]. These days, the responsibility for the management of these services usually rests with engineers and others not formally part of the public health system. This dissociation of responsibility for waterservices from generic public health has led to problems. For example, although benefits are usually "accrued" by the health service, the costs of water infrastructure and maintenance are borne by water utilities or boards, making expenditure decisions difficult [56]. Nevertheless, the public health community in general and the public health consultant in particular must be intimately involved in the provision of water services, playing such important roles as setting the health-based targets of WSPs [57] and designing and managing surveillance systems for waterborne disease [58]. The Walkerton tragedy--a fatal waterborne disease epidemic in Ontario, Canada that occurred in 2000--provides a good example of what can go wrong if public health oversight is completely removed from waterproviders [59]. One of the underlying problems in this outbreak was that the plant operators did not understand the importance and significance of water quality monitoring, so did not monitor adequately nor report problems when they occurred. These lapses led to seven deaths and an estimated 2,000+ illnesses.

The Availability of Water Resources Sustainable domestic water supplies depend on the availability of reliable water resources that can be easily developed. Fresh water resources are not spread evenly across the globe (Figure 3). Most of the wealthier areas of the world experience sufficiently frequent rainfall to replenish rivers, reservoirs, and aquifers reliably, and have the capacity to store and transfer that water [31]. Nevertheless, even wealthy countries are not free from the problems of occasional droughts, as recently seen in Spain and Australia. [Figure omitted, see PDF] Figure 3. Global distribution of rainfall: The number of dry months in a year. Data source [67]. [Figure omitted, see PDF] Figure 4. Although classified as an improved water supply, collecting water from a community tap still requires considerable time and effort. (Photograph: Paul R. Hunter). In many parts of Africa and Asia, the long dry season and dispersed nature of many of the populations who currently have no reliable water supply mean that the development of groundwater (a natural reservoir) is the only realistic option for significantly improving drinking water coverage [60]. Consequently, statistics on national water resources are not a good indicator of water scarcity for much of the global population. The important factor is the availability of water resources (usually groundwater) close to the point of need. Groundwater is not a panacea, however, and its development and use need careful attention. First, in some locations even small-scale groundwater supplies can be difficult to find and develop [61]. Such locations are often a priority for water supply intervention since they are beset with diseases related to high dependence on contaminated surface water sources. A lack of appreciation of the variability in the nature and occurrence ofwater resources is a major reason for expensive and unreliable supplies [62]. Second, groundwater resources rely on rainfall for renewal and are strongly affected by climate variability and climate change [63]. Overabstraction of water, which can lead to falling water levels and the exhaustion of resources, is a growing global problem, exacerbated by climate change, population growth, and urbanisation (see Text S2) [64].

Finally, ground water sources across the globe are increasingly being polluted through intensive agriculture, industry, and poor sanitation [64]. For wealthy countries, this increases the costs of providing access to safewater, because more extensive water treatment is required. In poor countries, expensive water treatment is not affordable and there is little option but to drink increasingly contaminated water. Management of Water Supply Technology One of the myths of community water supply in rural areas of low-income countries is that users benefiting from access to modern technology will, after a short period of training, manage the system themselves. The reality is that years of external support may be needed to build the necessary capacity [41]. Without ongoing external support (which is often absent in the context of weak local government), communities often fail to effectively manage modern technology for more than a few years. Ever since Schumacher's seminal work promoting the idea of "intermediate technology," individuals and organisations engaged in poverty alleviation have struggled to define what is now called "appropriate technology" [65]. The key is the match, or "fit," between the technology, the users, and those who have to manage and maintain it. Whether we are dealing with a rural water supply system managed mainly by the user community [60], or a more technically sophisticated urban supply system (see Text S3), this fit is essential. Modern technologies are only manageable if the right skills, resources, and incentives exist, and if appropriate support structures are provided. Finance The level of water sector financing in low-income countries is widely criticised as being inadequate, but at the same time water supply budgets are often underutilised or ineffectively used. Delays in the release of central government funds to local authorities combine with inadequate allocations for operational expenses to render local governments ineffective in disbursing the funds that do reach them. Importantly, though, the additional US$11.3 billion that is needed annually to meet the water and sanitation MDG targets--a relatively small investment (a few dollars per capita per year) that is "highly feasible and within the reach of most nations"--would yield an estimated seven-fold return [39]. Improved water supplies (in JMP terminology) usually attract a tariff or water charge. In lowincome countries it is common for such tariffs to be set at levels that are below the real running costs. In such cases a vicious circle often becomes established, in which below-cost tariffs lead to inadequate investment in maintenance, which results in deteriorating service and further unwillingness to pay even low tariffs.

Water consumers without an improved water supply do not pay a financial tariff for water. Even though they may pay heavily in terms of health, time, and energy, it often proves extremely difficult to change the mindset of consumers who are used to water being "free." Even small water charges are not welcomed by consumers, and revenue collections that start as regular monthly charges often deteriorate to ad hoc collections or disappear altogether. Financial irregularities also often militate against continued payment of charges. Strategies to Achieve an Improved Water Supply Access to a safe and continuous supply of water for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene is an essential prerequisite for health. An inadequate water supply--whether as a result of poor access or quality, low reliability, high cost, or difficulty of management--is associated with significant health risks. These health risks are experienced most strongly by the poorest nations, and the poorest households within nations. A goodwater supply is necessary for good sanitation and hygiene, and to underpin livelihoods, nutrition, and economic growth. The global MDG target on water supply is likely to be met [6] but will leave many hundreds of millions of people without an adequate water supply. Furthermore, the targets are highly unlikely to be met in sub-Saharan Africa. Failure to extend water supply services at an adequate pace is largely a consequence of high population growth rates in the low-income countries, insufficient investment (although the sums needed are not large), and poor governance. Failure of existing water supplies is often due to weak financial and management arrangements for operation and maintenance, and a mismatch between the technology, thewater environment, and the capacity of users to maintain systems. The result is poorly performing or broken down urban and rural water supply systems, and continuing poor health. While the health systems of developing countries are not directly responsible for changing this situation, poorwater supplies place large burdens of disease on their populations, and it is those populations and their national health services that pick up the costs of diarrhoea and other diseases. Health professionals should therefore join those from other sectors (infrastructure, education, and economic development) in demanding change. However, it is clear that many uncertainties remain about how to improve public health through improvements in the water supply. Thus, more and better research is desperately needed, in particular larger and longer double-blinded randomized controlled studies of the health impacts of water supply and quality interventions at the community and household level.

But it is equally clear that action must not wait for the outcomes of such research. We know enough now about the importance of improved water supply, sanitation, and hygiene in relation to health to consider universal access to these services to be an urgent imperative. Supporting Information Text S1. Quantity versus quality and the role of household water treatment. (0.09 MB PDF) Text S2. Climate change, drinking water, and health. (0.07 MB PDF) Text S3. The growing issue of urban water supply. (0.07 MB PDF) Author Contributions ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: PRH AMM RCC. Agree with the manuscript's results and conclusions: PRH AMM RCC. Analyzed the data: AMM. Wrote the first draft of the paper: PRH. Contributed to the writing of the paper: PRH AMM RCC. Participated in coauthor meetings to agree on structure and content of paper; drafted sections of the paper under senior authorship of PRH. References Howard G, Bartram J (2003) Domestic Water Quantity, Service Level and Health. Geneva: World Health Organisation. Available: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2003/WHO_SDE_WSH_03.02.pdf. Accessed May 2009 Data 360 (2010) Average water use per person per day. Available: http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=757. Accessed July 2010 Rijsberman FR (2006) Water scarcity: Fact or fiction? Agricult Water Managem 80: 5-22. Find this article online

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Selected Papers on Hydrogeology 13. International Association of Hydrogeologists. Leiden: CRC Press/Balkema Hanjra MA, Gichuki F (2008) Investments in agricultural water management for poverty reduction in Africa: case studies of Limpopo, Nile and Volta river basins. Natural Resources Forum 32: 185-202. Find this article online Stockholm International Water Institute (2005) Making water a part of economic development: the economic benefits of improved water management and services. Stockholm: Stockholm International Water Institute Carter R, Tyrrel SF, Howsam P (1993) Lessons learned from the UN water decade. J Inst Water Environm Managem 7: 646-650. Find this article online Schouten T, Moriarty P (2003) Community water, community management: from system to service in rural areas. Rugby (UK): ITDG Publishing Rietveld LC, Haarhoff J, Jagals J (2009) A tool for technical assessment of rural water supply systems in South Africa. Phys Chem Earth 34: 43-9. Find this article online Kabir A, Howard G (2007) Sustainability of arsenic mitigation in Bangladesh: Results of a functionality survey International. J Environm Hlth Res 17: 207-218. Find this article online Rural Water Supply Network (2010) Hand pump data. Available: http://www.rwsn.ch/prarticle.2005-10-25.9856177177/prarticle.2005-1026.9228452953/prarticle.2009-03-09.1365462467/prarticle_view. Accessed July 2010 Cranfield University, IRC and Aguaconsult (2006) Landscaping and review of technologies and approaches forwater, sanitation and hygiene. s.l.: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Available: http://www.irc.nl/page/36116. Accessed May 2009 MacDonald AM, Calow RC, Macdonald DMJ, Darling WG, Dochartaigh B (2009) What impact will climate change have on rural groundwater supplies in Africa. Hydrol Sci J 54: 690-703. Find this article online Carter RC, Danert K (2003) The private sector and water and sanitation services - policy and poverty issues. J Int Developm 15: 1067-1072. Find this article online Davison A, Howard G, Stevens M, Callan P, Fewtrell L, Deere D, Bartram J (2005) Water Safety Plans, managing drinking water quality from catchment to consumer.

Geneva: WHO. Available: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/wsp170805.pdf. Accessed May 2009 Howard G (2003) Water safety plans for small systems: a model for applying HACCP concepts for cost-effective monitoring in developing countries. Water Sci Technol 47: 21520. Find this article online Mahmud SG, Shamsuddin SkAJ, Feroze Ahmed M, Davison A, Deere D, Howard G (2007) Development and implementation of water safety plans for small water supplies in Bangladesh: benefits and lessons learned. JWater Health 5: 585-597. Find this article online Kaufmann D, Kraay A, Mastruzzi M (2008) Governance matters VII. Washington DC: World Bank. Working Paper 4654. Available: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1148386. Accessed May 2009 FAOAquastat online database. Rome: FAO. Available: http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/main/index.stm. Accessed January 2009 World Bank (2005) Capacity building in Africa. Washington DC: World Bank Operations Evaluation Department Cook GC (2002) Thomas Southwood Smith FRCP (1788-1861): leading exponent of diseases of poverty, and pioneer of sanitary reform in the mid-nineteenth century. J Med Biog 10: 194-205. Find this article online Porter D (1999) Health, civilization, and the state: a history of public health from ancient to modern times. London: Routledge Hunter PR, Fewtrell L (2001) Acceptable risk. In: Fewtrell L, Bartram J, editors. Water Quality: Guidelines, Standards and Health. Risk assessment and management for water-related infectious disease. London: IWA Publishing. pp. 207-227 Davison A, Deere D, Stevens M, Howard G, Bartram J (2006) Water safety plan manual. Available: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/wsp_manual.pdf. accessed May 2009 Hunter PR, Waite M, Ronchi E, editors. (2002) Drinking Water and Infectious Disease: Establishing the Link. Bocata Raton: CRC Press

Hrudey SE, Payment P, Huck PM, Gillham RW, Hrudey EJ (2003) A fatal waterborne disease epidemic in Walkerton, Ontario: comparison with other waterborne outbreaks in the developed world. Water Sci Technol 47: 7-14. Find this article online MacDonald AM, Davies J, Calow RC, Chilton PJ (2005) Developing groundwater: a guide for rural water supply. Rugby (UK): ITDG Publishing MacDonald AM, Kemp SJ, Davies J (2005) Transmissivity variations from mudstones. Ground Water 34: 259-69. Find this article online MacDonald AM, Calow RC (2009) Developing groundwater for secure rural water supplies in Africa. Desalination 248: 546-556. Find this article online Carter RC, Parker A (2009) Climate change, population trends and groundwater in Africa. Hydrological Sci J 54: 676-689. Find this article online Foster SSD, Chilton PJ (2003) Groundwater: the processes and global significance of aquifer degradation. Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 258: 1957-72. Find this article online Schumacher EF (1973) Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered. s.l: Blond and Briggs Ltd World Health Organisation (2010) WHOSIS: WHO Statistical Information System. Geneva: WHO. Available: http://www.who.int/whosis/en/. Accessed May 2009 New M, Hulme M, Jones P (2000) Representing twentieth century space time climate variability. Part II: development of 1901-96 monthly grids of terrestrial surface climate. J Climate. 13. : 2217-2238 Word count: 7202 2010 Hunter et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited: Hunter PR, MacDonald AM, Carter RC (2010) Water Supply and Health. PLoS Med 7(11): e1000361. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000361

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Cite Subject Water supply; Water quality;

Developing countries--LDCs; Drinking water MeSH Humans, Health (major), Water Supply (major) Company / organization Name: United Nations Childrens Fund--UNICEF NAICS: 813219, 923120, 928120 Identifier / keyword plos medicine, plos, public library of science, open access, open-access,medical journal, medicine, medical, journal, research, article Title Water Supply and Health: e1000361 Author Hunter, Paul R; MacDonald, Alan M; Carter, Richard C Publication title PLoS Medicine Volume 7 Issue 11 Pages e1000361 Publication year 2010 Publication date Nov 2010 Year 2010 Section Policy Forum Publisher Public Library of Science Place of publication

San Francisco Country of publication United States Publication subject MEDICAL SCIENCES Source type Scholarly Journals Language of publication English Document type Journal Article DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000361 Accession number 21085692 ProQuest document ID 1288091952 Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/1288091952?accountid=31259 Copyright 2010 Hunter et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited: Hunter PR, MacDonald AM, Carter RC (2010) Water Supply and Health. PLoS Med 7(11): e1000361. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000361 Last updated 2013-07-04 Database ProQuest Medical Library

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Privatization and Citizenship: Local politics of water in the Philippines

Chng, Nai Rui. Development, suppl. Water for People 51.1 (Mar 2008): 4248.
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Nai Rui Chng explores the different ways in which water privatization has impacted on the constitution of political community in the context of local politics. Based on recent fieldwork on small-scale water providers inan urban poor community in Taguig City, Metro Manila, in the Philippines, he describes collective action by theTaguig urban poor in response to water privatization. He outlines how Taguig's experience informs the wider debate on water privatization and citizenship. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

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TranslateFull text Turn on search term navigation Outlines how a community Philippine experience informs the wider debate on water privatizationand citizenship Introduction The gap between the universal recognition of water as essential for human life and the specific institutional arrangements necessary for its distribution is large. The worldwide campaigns to both privatize urban waterservices and the resistance by citizen mobilization represent competing notions of citizenship. For some anti-privatization advocates, the privatization of water is seen as undermining citizenship through the erosion of democratic structures and processes, leading ultimately to poor service performance. Water privatization and citizenship The seemingly intuitive claim, 'water is a human right' is not just the battle-cry of antiwater privatization activists all over the world but also points to a central tension in competing notions of citizenship in today's world. Modern citizenship is premised upon complex issues of rights, participation, duty and identity (Delanty, 2000). On the one hand, there is the dominant state citizenship model that is institutionalized by waterprivatization. In 'global water welfarism' an emerging global structure of corporate welfarism is constituted by elites to help those who cannot access or pay for water (Morgan, 2006). While welfarism is rendered 'neutral'in Morgan's outline, the leading actors of global water welfarism like the World Bank and the United Nations are institutions that support, rather than challenge the territorial premise of state citizenship. On the other hand, there exists a desire by anti-water privatization advocates to realize an immanent transnational community of cosmopolitan citizenship (Morgan, 2005b). Unlike state citizenship, anti-waterprivatization activists aspire to a citizenship that is not based on territoriality (Stewart, 1995, 2001). For advocates challenging water privatization, contestation is about private/public interests that pit the profit maximizing corporation against the social, economic, political and environmental interests of the public (Hall and Lobina, 2004; Balanya et al. , 2005). The privatization of water is said to be incompatible with public interest, hence undermining

citizenship through depriving citizens of a basic right to water by subjectingwater management to the logic of market forces of demand and supply. Without accountability to citizens through democratic structures and processes, corporations that are only answerable to their shareholders are likely to compromise sustainability in their bid maximize shareholder value, leading ultimately to poor service performance. This kind of episodic resistance against water privatization, bounded by the affirmation of a common need is exactly the kind of outbreaks of democracy Blaug (2000) sees as evidence of institutionalized democratic citizenship. Bakker (2007: 440), however, pointed out how this exaggerated public/private divide in theory resuscitates two unsatisfactory options - state or market control - that in reality excludes local communities anti-privatization advocates. As Morgan's (2005a) studies reveal, any activism is crucially dependent on local politics. The following urban poor mobilization in Taguig reveals that the attempt to institutionalize competing notions of citizenship remains bound up in local politics. State-society formation and water privatization in the Philippines The privatization of the water sector in Metro Manila occurs in Philippine state-society relations where thestate has been called 'weak' due to its capture by 'local strongmen' (Migdal, 1988) and an unevenly developed civil society (Franco, 2004). Filipino politics is characterized by the prevalence of local power brokers who achieved sustained monopolistic control over both coercive and economic resources within given territorial jurisdictions or bailiwicks. The Philippine 'state' is thus a complex set of predatory mechanisms for the private exploitation and accumulation of resources (Sidel, 1999). Civil society is a correspondingly large and complex sphere of public action filled with variety of associations and movements that are distributed unevenly across archipelago, reflecting the contours of a post-Marcos state where rule of law is unevenly institutionalized (Franco, 2004). The implications of a vibrant civil society and a 'weak' state means that the transition from what Fox (1994) described elsewhere as 'clientelistic subordination to citizenship rights of access to the state' is ongoing in the Philippines. In 1997, there was no surprise when contracts from the bidding of the Manila Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) were awarded to Manila Water (MWCI) and Maynilad (MWSI), owned by economically and politically powerful families of the Ayalas and Lopezes, respectively.
1

Prior to privatization, up to 3.6 million residents in the Metro Manila had no access

to water in 1995. MWSS was as inefficient as it was unpopular. Ten years into being, persistent divergent opinions on the experience of water utility reformin Metro Manila suggest that water privatization remains contested. Much of this challenge has come from mobilized citizens in civil society engaging water privatization on grounds of legitimacy, governance and performance.

Water politics in Taguig It was nearly midnight when the motley group of engineers from MWCI and residents from the local community gathered in a narrow and dank alleyway near the entrance to Sitio Imelda, an urban poor community in the city of Taguig in Metro Manila. Toiling under torchlight and enforced silence, they attachedthe mother metre to the newly installed secondary pipes as Ruth,
2

her neighbours and family members encircled the working engineers, held their hands

together and said a prayer: Guide us oh Lord, for the installation of the bulk-metre. Protect us from danger, especially from the municipality. We hope that this water will serve the community and prove to the people that our desire for clean and cheapwater can be fulfilled. This is the end of our long wait for nawasa.
3

The next morning on 2 January 2004, water from Angat dam, treated and distributed by MWCI began running freely in the community-installed pipes of Sitio Imelda for the first time in the neighbourhood's history.4 Formed in late 2003, Ruth's Waterlink was the first of several water Peoples' Organizations (POs) to be formed in the community of Sitio Imelda in barangay Upper Bicutan, Taguig.5 Comprising around 110 member households as of 2007, Waterlink served between 1,200 to 1,500 residents in Sitio Imelda under a community-managed supply system where POs enter into a bulkwater contract with MWCI, and are billed according tothe reading on the mother metre.
6

POs also

pay for the installation of the mother metres, usually located atthe community's entrance, and all pipe extensions from the company's main line to individual households. Crucially, it is the PO, and not MWCI, that collects payment from member households. Apart from expenses related to the operation and maintenance of the water system, POs also utilize earnings for community projects such as street lighting, paving of foot paths and undertaking the legal requirements needed to secure formal ownership of the land on which the community is located, where land tenure was a problem. In Sitio Imelda, Waterlink has also made donations to the church, as well as disburse 'grocery allowances' (Php300) during the Christmas festive period to all members. Initial investors from the community are also given refunds of their capital expenditures and are also entitled to dividends (Ferrer, 2006). Billing within the community is based on sub-metres, which is often shared by several households or tenants under a single connection account. Collection is done twice a month and POs' flexibility in payment has helped revenue collections. Since the runners who collect payment also live in the same community as their 'customers', they are able to collect more frequently, as well as schedule their visits to ensure that costumers have money on hand for payment.

Relationships between POs and their customers are thus not simply business alone. Waterlink has exercised much latitude in allowing members a range of payment means that sustains the connection without automatic resort to cut-offs. Additionally, payment balances are treated as interest-free loans so social pressure helps prevent defaults to a certain extent. This community-managed approach in service delivery has also helped address the problem of nonrevenue water.
7

Waterlink officers regularly monitor pipes or hoses located aboveground and are

able to immediately respond to problems of water wastage caused by damaged pipes. Speedy response time has also motivated community residents to voluntarily alert the officers whenever they see instances of water wastage. They also closely monitor household water consumption to spot irregular usage (a possible sign of water pilferage). By 2007, there were just under 90 POs providing community-managed water systems in Taguig under bulk-contract with MWCI. What appears to be a tremendously successful example of community-management water system is, however, coming under threat, paradoxically from MWCI itself, as well as the local government of Taguig city, led by incumbent Mayor Freddie Tinga. Taguig has been lauded as one of the most successful examples of MWCI's engagement with organized urban poor communities for water service provision.8 However, many POs including Waterlink did not receive help from the local government in the development of communitymanaged water systems. Interviews with officers and members of various water POs in Taguig have suggested that local civil society has been subjected to a considerable degree of intimidation from local politicians and members of their political machinery.
9

Most of the POs for example

failed to obtain excavation permits from the local government needed for excavation work when laying pipes, resulting in haphazard reticulation. This has been used by theincumbent mayor of Taguig Freddie Tinga to attack the POs. He has further accused 'oppressive syndicates' of overcharging their customers (Tinga, 2006). A resolution was also passed by the Taguig city council supporting 'direct individual water connections' with the support of MWCI. MWCI meanwhile has sought to extend direct connections to households who already receive water from the POs, thus undermining their own contract withthe POs. At a recent arbitration by the regulator, MWCI was chided for infringing the service areas of thePOs. According to Villanueva, leader of a large group of water POs in Taguig concentrated in an adjacent barangayin Signal village, this change in attitude by local politicians and MWCI is in fact 'political'. Villanueva has found it difficult to understand why MWCI continues to pursue bulkwater selling to the POs in Taguig and other parts of Metro Manila, while undermining its own bulkwater schemes in Taguig 'deceptively' by providing direct connections to customers who also purchase bulk-water from POs.
10

This has led to an increase inpayment delinquency,

resulting in many POs failing to pay MWCI. Recently, 13 POs including Waterlink have brought their case to the regulator for arbitration. Villanueva has claimed that they are also prepared to resort to the courts to seek redress regarding allegations that MWCI is undermining their business,

something that MWCI denied during the arbitration.

11

MWCI's official stance is that POs are over-

charging their customers while MWCI remains obligated to the concession agreement to provide direct connections. The political and economic relationships linking Villanueva and the POs, Tinga and MWCI is thus highly textured and complex. From the perspective of MWCI, the POs presented a welcome opportunity to expand water service delivery (without needing to bear too much risks and incur transaction costs) in poorly connected areas at a financially difficult time for MWCI.12 To this end, it has skilfully managed its relations with the local community and politicians as evidenced by its official stance of claiming sole credit for community-managed water systems inTaguig while laying blame on the very same POs for over-charging and poor service performance. For Villanueva, the comparative advantages of POs over big water utilities in servicing the urban poor are very clear. Being residents of the area, POs are familiar with the social and physical landscape of thecommunity in ways that MWCI, with its handful of local administrative and technical staff, can never be. Organized urban poor groups tap into local civil society and are able to ensure prompt and sustained payment of bills given their knowledge of how much and how often, individual households receive their wages from employment, if any. POs can also provide better customer service as they have sufficient manpower in the local community to attend to problems experienced by customers such as leaks. According to interviews with waterPOs in another barangay in Taguig, Upper Bicutan, PO officers' response to reports of leaks or pilferage - usually by residents in the community - is instantaneous, compared with the days and even weeks a report to MWCI may take before it is acted upon. It is in their incentive to respond quickly to infrastructural problems since their own revenue and income is directly affected by NRW. In addition to service delivery, there is also a political dimension to the significance of the POs. Their success may also have contributed to the erosion of power relations local politicians like Tinga have had over their constituents. In the past, local communities with water problems need only lobby their local politicians, who respond out of their allocated congressional development funds in local water infrastructure projects like deep-well construction. This sustained the traditional patron-client political system dominated by local 'strongmen' and their political machines alluded to earlier.
13

Now, not only can local civil society mobilize independently,

POs like Waterlink can also tap into broad-based anti-water privatization networks like Bantay Tubig who are aware of the value of utilizing congressional support from minority politicians for advocacy. Thedemonstration effect of Villanueva's associations and other POs like Waterlink has threatened the political machinery of local politicians so much so that water was a key issue in Taguig in recent legislative and local elections in May 2007 when Villanueva withdrew his support from Freddie Tinga's re-election campaign. This is despite their long-running close

association in previous elections when Villanueva would mobilize support for Tinga. A shrewd political operator balancing the needs of his own community with his own agenda, and his assessment of local and national political dynamics, Villanueva's personal leftist political leanings has not prevented him in engaging with the conservative political machines of local politicians, local church groups and seeking out broader-based, sectoral NGOs like Bantay Tubig.
14

For more

politically modest leaders like Ruth, there is less space for manoeuvring that explains Waterlink's dependence on Villanueva in seeking various avenues of redress. Lessons learnt The experience of Taguig has shown that water service provision is bound up in local political contexts. Whilethe study does not penetrate into the 'gray zone of power' so thoroughly illuminated by Auyero's (2007) study of local politics in Argentina, the above case study has provided an indicative hint at the politics ofwater service provision at the local level, and how it relates to the wider debate on citizenship. Given thatthe local government was either unwilling or unable to address the issue, MWCI delegated water service provision to the POs outright rather than undermining or marginalizing the local community. The status of theurban poor with regards to their right to clean and affordable water has always been compromised by theMWSS. The privatization of the water sector had therefore provided a mobilized urban poor with not onlywater service, but also an economic livelihood and political empowerment in the face of encroaching clientelism. It was probably one of the first times a privatized water utility and an urban poor community association had worked together. It is also one of several different forms of political relationship between (mobilized) citizens and essential service providers in a post-privatization environment that suggest both advocates and dissenters of water privatization engage the issue in a variety of ways. In the Taguig case, the POs were re-empowered citizens, new customers and service providers all at once. This goes beyond any existing formulation of citizenship models from either global water welfarism or radical cosmopolitanism. Privatization alters the political opportunity structures that allow collective action from citizens, contentious or otherwise. Villanueva considered himself 'lucky' to have come across MWCI for his engagement with theprivate utility has paid off economically and politically. Despite the apparent ideological contradiction in their association - Villanueva remains a member of a leftist faction in a country with the world's longest-running Marxist insurgency - He is also in no hurry to disassociate himself from MWCI despite pressure from the utility and the local government. He has plans to take the Taguig water PO model to other parts of Metro Manila like Antipolo. That the limited emancipation of the urban poor in Taguig has come about as a consequence of the universal but thin identity-conferring property of water is beyond a doubt, given the initial

success of the nearly 90 POs providing water services in Taguig. The sustainability of this model, however, may be compromised not by 'local politics' but by the initiation and regulation of a culture in the community by POs, whereby the idea and practice of paying for water is produced and re-produced. Not only is the outlet for more militant collective action stymied as witnessed elsewhere in Metro Manila (e.g., Caloocan), the commodification of water and its decoupling from state provision prepared local communities for the smooth expansion of MWCI in expansion areas like Taguig. Hence, when the time came for the expansion of direct connection by MWCI (i.e., conversion), POs were no opposed to this. What they had problems with was the political context out of which conversion was taking place. The peoples' response to water privatization has not simply been a singular movement of resistance. As Bakker explained, 'alter-globalization' activists have realized the futility of 'rights talk' and are focusing instead on alternative concepts and institutions. Taguig has brought attention to themonumental challenges to the institutionalization of alternative models of urban water services, and by implication, a democratic cosmopolitan citizenship. Conclusion For community leaders like Villanueva, mobilizing communities for water may not be very different from mobilizing communities to demonstrate in the streets, or to vote for particular political candidates in local elections. It was due to the desire to support and fund the struggle for legal tenancy in Taguig that led Villanueva to first enquire about MWCI's bulk-selling programme as a business opportunity .15 This was yet another dimension of the 'entrepreneurship' displayed by community organizers such as Villanueva documented elsewhere (Karaos, 2006: 364). For Ruth's Waterlink however, it was simply an opportunity to provide a service for themselves and to the community. As inferred by Esguerra (2005: 41), essential services like water may form only part of the agenda of a local civil society embedded in local politics. In this context, citizenship is not simply rights, duties, identities and responsibilities. Citizenship - the debates and institutions as expressed in the local community - is the space, which theurban poor and marginalized exploit for their own purposes. It is in this space that the universal but thinly-identifed conferring property of water as a mobilizing source may be augmented, albeit temporarily. There is a greater recognition by the community that there are competing demands on them for their allegiance, custom and patronage. Rather than being passive 'takers', their active involvement places them at the forefront of citizenship debates in relation to water privatization. The ultimate fate of the water POs and similar initiatives in Metro Manila and elsewhere will determine how far alternative models of urban water service delivery, and democratic citizenship, may be instituted. Footnote

The city was carved into two zones. The east zone was awarded to MWCI and its foreign partner,

Bechtel while the west zone was awarded to Maynilad and Suez/Ondeo.
2

Not her real name. Her identity is being protected as the future of POs is subject to ongoing

negotiations in the community.

3

Interview with Ruth, 11 April 2007. 'Nawasa' is the local community's name for piped water from

MWSS (previously the National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority).

4

Ninety-eight percent of the water supply of Metro Manila comes from the Angat Dam. The Barangay is the smallest local government unit in the Philippines. Bulk-water is the scheme by which MWCI charges a bulk rate of PhP19/m3 to community PO sub-

contractorsin Taguig who in turn, directly distribute water via individual connections to household under their own tariff calculation. Rates once again vary from PhP25/m3 to PhP35/m3 . Waterlink charges its customers PhP25/m3 . US$1 is equivalent to Philippine Pesos 44 (27 October 2007, Universal Currency Converter, http://www.xe.com).
7

Non-revenue water is water that is 'lost' before it reaches the customer. Losses can be real

losses (e.g., leaks) or apparent losses (e.g., pilferage or metering errors).

8

MWCI's water programme for poor communities, the 'Tubig Para Sa Barangay' programme (TPSB

- 'Water forthe Community') was developed in 1998. TPSB is primarily a bulk-water scheme.
9

While difficult to verify, it's worth noting that many in the local community believe that the

water POs were a threat to the existing deep-well operators in the area who had close links with politicians.
10

Interview with Noli Villanueva, 21 March 2007. Noli Villanueva has a long history in Taguig as a

community leader and activist on land tenure issues. A resident in Barangay Signal Village, he has been deeply involvedin local politics where his perceived leadership of the community has made him the enemy, and ally, of local politicians. He claims to have set up the first bulkwater PO in Taguig in partnership with MWCI. Water POs under him have been so economically successful that Villanueva has attempted to form similar Water POs inother cities in Metro Manila.
11

Interview with Noli Villanueva, 21 March 2007. In the first few years of the concession, both MWCI and MWSI were unable to aggressively

12

extend waterservices beyond the 'core' areas due to financial difficulties caused by the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

13

Interview with Ben Moncerate, former staff to a congressman in the Philippine House of

Representatives, 25 January 2007.

14

Bantay Tubig (Philippine Water Vigilance Network) is a 'citizens' coalition for adequate,

accessible and affordable water in the Philippines", http://ipd.ph/Bantay%20Tubig/webcontent/b2big_main.html.

15

Interview with Noli Villanueva, 25 January 2007.

References

Auyero, Javier (2007) Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina: The gray zone of state power , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bakker, Karen (2007) 'The "Commons" versus the "Commodity": Alter-globalization, antiprivatization and thehuman right to water in the global south', Antipode 39 (3): 430-455.

Balany, Beln, Brid Brennan, Olivier Hoedeman, Satoko Kishimoto and Philipp Terhorst (eds.) (2005) Reclaiming Public Water Achievements, Struggles and Visions from Around the World , Transnational Institute (TNI) & Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

Blaug, Ricardo (2000) 'Outbreaks of democracy', in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds.) Socialist Register 2000: Necessary and Unnecessary Utopias , London: Merlin.

Delanty, Gerard (2000) Citizenship in a Global Age: Society, Culture, Politics , Buckingham: Open University Press.

Esguerra, Jude (2005) Manila Water Privatization: Universal Service Coverage After the Crisis? , United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), unpublished manuscript.

Ferrer, Carmille Grace S. (2006) 'Alternative Approaches to Water Service Delivery in Hard-toReach Areas: Two cases from the Philippines', Paper read at Public Models of Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation in Rural Areas, Barcelona, 19-21 November.

Fox, Jonathan (1994) 'The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico', World Politics 46 (2): 151-184.

Franco, Jennifer C. (2004) 'The Philippines: Fractious civil society and competing visions of democracy', inMuthiah Alagappa (ed.) Civil Society and Political Space in Asia: Expanding and

Contracting Democratic Space , Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Hall, David and Emanuele Lobina (2004) 'Private and Public Interests in Water and Energy', Natural Resources Forum 28 : 268-277.

Karaos, Anna Marie A. (2006) 'Populist Mobilization and Manila's Urban Poor', in Aya Fabros, Joel Rocamora and Djorina Velasco (eds.) Social Movements in the Philippines , Quezon City, Manila: Institute of Popular Democracy.

Migdal, Joel S. (1988) Strong Societies and Weak States: State-society relations and state capabilities in the third world , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Morgan, Bronwen (2005a) Building Bridges Between Regulatory and Citizen Space: Civil Society Contributions toWater Service Delivery Frameworks in Cross-National Perspective: Centre for Socio-Legal Studies , University of Oxford, unpublished manuscript.

Morgan, Bronwen (2005b) 'Social Protests against Privatization of Water: Forging cosmopolitan citizenship?',in Marie-Claire Cordonier-Seggier and Christopher Gregory Weeramantry (eds.) Sustainable Justice: Reconciling international economic, environmental and social law , Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.

Morgan, Bronwen (2006) 'Emerging Global Water Welfarism: Access to Water, Unruly Consumers and Transnational Governance', in Frank Trentmannand John Brewer (eds.) Consumer Cultures, Global Perspectives , Oxford: Berg Press.

Sidel, John T. (1999) Capital, Coercion and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines , Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Stewart, Angus (1995) 'Two Conceptions of Citizenship', British Journal of Sociology 46 (1): 6378.

Stewart, Angus (2001) Theories of Power and Domination: The Politics of Empowerment in Late Modernity , London: Sage.

Tinga, Freddie 2006 'Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink', Manila Standard Today , 17 July. Word count: 4094 Society for International Development 2008

Indexing (details)
Cite Subject Studies; Privatization; Political behavior; Community action; Water supply Location Philippines Classification 9179: Asia & the Pacific 9130: Experimental/theoretical 1210: Politics & political behavior 1530: Natural resources Title Privatization and Citizenship: Local politics of water in the Philippines Author Chng, Nai Rui Publication title Development Volume 51 Issue 1 Supplement Water for People Pages 42-48 Number of pages 7 Publication year 2008 Publication date Mar 2008 Year

2008 Publisher Palgrave Macmillan Place of publication Houndmills Country of publication United Kingdom Publication subject Business And Economics--International Development And Assistance, Political Science-International Relations ISSN 10116370 Source type Scholarly Journals Language of publication English Document type Feature DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100444 ProQuest document ID 216913635 Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/216913635?accountid=31259 Copyright Society for International Development 2008 Last updated 2010-06-09 Database 2 databases View list

Privatization and Citizenship: Local politics of water in the Philippines

Chng, Nai Rui. Development, suppl. Water for People 51.1 (Mar 2008): 4248.
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Abstract (summary)
TranslateAbstract

Nai Rui Chng explores the different ways in which water privatization has impacted on the constitution of political community in the context of local politics. Based on recent fieldwork on small-scale water providers inan urban poor community in Taguig City, Metro Manila, in the Philippines, he describes collective action by theTaguig urban poor in response to water privatization. He outlines how Taguig's experience informs the wider debate on water privatization and citizenship. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Full Text

TranslateFull text Turn on search term navigation Outlines how a community Philippine experience informs the wider debate on water privatizationand citizenship Introduction The gap between the universal recognition of water as essential for human life and the specific institutional arrangements necessary for its distribution is large. The worldwide campaigns to both privatize urban waterservices and the resistance by citizen mobilization represent competing notions of citizenship. For some anti-privatization advocates, the privatization of water is seen as undermining citizenship through the erosion of democratic structures and processes, leading ultimately to poor service performance. Water privatization and citizenship The seemingly intuitive claim, 'water is a human right' is not just the battle-cry of antiwater privatization activists all over the world but also points to a central tension in competing notions of citizenship in today's world. Modern citizenship is premised upon complex issues of rights, participation, duty and identity (Delanty, 2000). On the one hand, there is the dominant state citizenship model that is institutionalized by waterprivatization. In 'global water welfarism' an emerging global structure of corporate welfarism is constituted by elites to help those who cannot access or pay for water (Morgan, 2006). While welfarism is rendered 'neutral'in Morgan's outline, the leading actors of global water welfarism like the World Bank and the United Nations are institutions that support, rather than challenge the territorial premise of state citizenship. On the other hand, there exists a desire by anti-water privatization advocates to realize an immanent transnational community of cosmopolitan citizenship (Morgan, 2005b). Unlike state citizenship, anti-waterprivatization activists aspire to a citizenship that is not based on territoriality

(Stewart, 1995, 2001). For advocates challenging water privatization, contestation is about private/public interests that pit the profit maximizing corporation against the social, economic, political and environmental interests of the public (Hall and Lobina, 2004; Balanya et al. , 2005). The privatization of water is said to be incompatible with public interest, hence undermining citizenship through depriving citizens of a basic right to water by subjectingwater management to the logic of market forces of demand and supply. Without accountability to citizens through democratic structures and processes, corporations that are only answerable to their shareholders are likely to compromise sustainability in their bid maximize shareholder value, leading ultimately to poor service performance. This kind of episodic resistance against water privatization, bounded by the affirmation of a common need is exactly the kind of outbreaks of democracy Blaug (2000) sees as evidence of institutionalized democratic citizenship. Bakker (2007: 440), however, pointed out how this exaggerated public/private divide in theory resuscitates two unsatisfactory options - state or market control - that in reality excludes local communities anti-privatization advocates. As Morgan's (2005a) studies reveal, any activism is crucially dependent on local politics. The following urban poor mobilization in Taguig reveals that the attempt to institutionalize competing notions of citizenship remains bound up in local politics. State-society formation and water privatization in the Philippines The privatization of the water sector in Metro Manila occurs in Philippine state-society relations where thestate has been called 'weak' due to its capture by 'local strongmen' (Migdal, 1988) and an unevenly developed civil society (Franco, 2004). Filipino politics is characterized by the prevalence of local power brokers who achieved sustained monopolistic control over both coercive and economic resources within given territorial jurisdictions or bailiwicks. The Philippine 'state' is thus a complex set of predatory mechanisms for the private exploitation and accumulation of resources (Sidel, 1999). Civil society is a correspondingly large and complex sphere of public action filled with variety of associations and movements that are distributed unevenly across archipelago, reflecting the contours of a post-Marcos state where rule of law is unevenly institutionalized (Franco, 2004). The implications of a vibrant civil society and a 'weak' state means that the transition from what Fox (1994) described elsewhere as 'clientelistic subordination to citizenship rights of access to the state' is ongoing in the Philippines. In 1997, there was no surprise when contracts from the bidding of the Manila Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) were awarded to Manila Water (MWCI) and Maynilad (MWSI), owned by economically and politically powerful families of the Ayalas and Lopezes, respectively.
1

Prior to privatization, up to 3.6 million residents in the Metro Manila had no access

to water in 1995. MWSS was as inefficient as it was unpopular. Ten years into being, persistent

divergent opinions on the experience of water utility reformin Metro Manila suggest that water privatization remains contested. Much of this challenge has come from mobilized citizens in civil society engaging water privatization on grounds of legitimacy, governance and performance. Water politics in Taguig It was nearly midnight when the motley group of engineers from MWCI and residents from the local community gathered in a narrow and dank alleyway near the entrance to Sitio Imelda, an urban poor community in the city of Taguig in Metro Manila. Toiling under torchlight and enforced silence, they attachedthe mother metre to the newly installed secondary pipes as Ruth,
2

her neighbours and family members encircled the working engineers, held their hands

together and said a prayer: Guide us oh Lord, for the installation of the bulk-metre. Protect us from danger, especially from the municipality. We hope that this water will serve the community and prove to the people that our desire for clean and cheapwater can be fulfilled. This is the end of our long wait for nawasa.
3

The next morning on 2 January 2004, water from Angat dam, treated and distributed by MWCI began running freely in the community-installed pipes of Sitio Imelda for the first time in the neighbourhood's history.4 Formed in late 2003, Ruth's Waterlink was the first of several water Peoples' Organizations (POs) to be formed in the community of Sitio Imelda in barangay Upper Bicutan, Taguig.5 Comprising around 110 member households as of 2007, Waterlink served between 1,200 to 1,500 residents in Sitio Imelda under a community-managed supply system where POs enter into a bulkwater contract with MWCI, and are billed according tothe reading on the mother metre.
6

POs also

pay for the installation of the mother metres, usually located atthe community's entrance, and all pipe extensions from the company's main line to individual households. Crucially, it is the PO, and not MWCI, that collects payment from member households. Apart from expenses related to the operation and maintenance of the water system, POs also utilize earnings for community projects such as street lighting, paving of foot paths and undertaking the legal requirements needed to secure formal ownership of the land on which the community is located, where land tenure was a problem. In Sitio Imelda, Waterlink has also made donations to the church, as well as disburse 'grocery allowances' (Php300) during the Christmas festive period to all members. Initial investors from the community are also given refunds of their capital expenditures and are also entitled to dividends (Ferrer, 2006). Billing within the community is based on sub-metres, which is often shared by several households or tenants under a single connection account. Collection is done twice a month and POs'

flexibility in payment has helped revenue collections. Since the runners who collect payment also live in the same community as their 'customers', they are able to collect more frequently, as well as schedule their visits to ensure that costumers have money on hand for payment. Relationships between POs and their customers are thus not simply business alone. Waterlink has exercised much latitude in allowing members a range of payment means that sustains the connection without automatic resort to cut-offs. Additionally, payment balances are treated as interest-free loans so social pressure helps prevent defaults to a certain extent. This community-managed approach in service delivery has also helped address the problem of nonrevenue water.
7

Waterlink officers regularly monitor pipes or hoses located aboveground and are

able to immediately respond to problems of water wastage caused by damaged pipes. Speedy response time has also motivated community residents to voluntarily alert the officers whenever they see instances of water wastage. They also closely monitor household water consumption to spot irregular usage (a possible sign of water pilferage). By 2007, there were just under 90 POs providing community-managed water systems in Taguig under bulk-contract with MWCI. What appears to be a tremendously successful example of community-management water system is, however, coming under threat, paradoxically from MWCI itself, as well as the local government of Taguig city, led by incumbent Mayor Freddie Tinga. Taguig has been lauded as one of the most successful examples of MWCI's engagement with organized urban poor communities for water service provision.8 However, many POs including Waterlink did not receive help from the local government in the development of communitymanaged water systems. Interviews with officers and members of various water POs in Taguig have suggested that local civil society has been subjected to a considerable degree of intimidation from local politicians and members of their political machinery.
9

Most of the POs for example

failed to obtain excavation permits from the local government needed for excavation work when laying pipes, resulting in haphazard reticulation. This has been used by theincumbent mayor of Taguig Freddie Tinga to attack the POs. He has further accused 'oppressive syndicates' of overcharging their customers (Tinga, 2006). A resolution was also passed by the Taguig city council supporting 'direct individual water connections' with the support of MWCI. MWCI meanwhile has sought to extend direct connections to households who already receive water from the POs, thus undermining their own contract withthe POs. At a recent arbitration by the regulator, MWCI was chided for infringing the service areas of thePOs. According to Villanueva, leader of a large group of water POs in Taguig concentrated in an adjacent barangayin Signal village, this change in attitude by local politicians and MWCI is in fact 'political'. Villanueva has found it difficult to understand why MWCI continues to pursue bulkwater selling to the POs in Taguig and other parts of Metro Manila, while undermining its own bulkwater schemes in Taguig 'deceptively' by providing direct connections to customers who also

purchase bulk-water from POs.

10

This has led to an increase inpayment delinquency,

resulting in many POs failing to pay MWCI. Recently, 13 POs including Waterlink have brought their case to the regulator for arbitration. Villanueva has claimed that they are also prepared to resort to the courts to seek redress regarding allegations that MWCI is undermining their business, something that MWCI denied during the arbitration.
11

MWCI's official stance is that POs are over-

charging their customers while MWCI remains obligated to the concession agreement to provide direct connections. The political and economic relationships linking Villanueva and the POs, Tinga and MWCI is thus highly textured and complex. From the perspective of MWCI, the POs presented a welcome opportunity to expand water service delivery (without needing to bear too much risks and incur transaction costs) in poorly connected areas at a financially difficult time for MWCI.12 To this end, it has skilfully managed its relations with the local community and politicians as evidenced by its official stance of claiming sole credit for community-managed water systems inTaguig while laying blame on the very same POs for over-charging and poor service performance. For Villanueva, the comparative advantages of POs over big water utilities in servicing the urban poor are very clear. Being residents of the area, POs are familiar with the social and physical landscape of thecommunity in ways that MWCI, with its handful of local administrative and technical staff, can never be. Organized urban poor groups tap into local civil society and are able to ensure prompt and sustained payment of bills given their knowledge of how much and how often, individual households receive their wages from employment, if any. POs can also provide better customer service as they have sufficient manpower in the local community to attend to problems experienced by customers such as leaks. According to interviews with waterPOs in another barangay in Taguig, Upper Bicutan, PO officers' response to reports of leaks or pilferage - usually by residents in the community - is instantaneous, compared with the days and even weeks a report to MWCI may take before it is acted upon. It is in their incentive to respond quickly to infrastructural problems since their own revenue and income is directly affected by NRW. In addition to service delivery, there is also a political dimension to the significance of the POs. Their success may also have contributed to the erosion of power relations local politicians like Tinga have had over their constituents. In the past, local communities with water problems need only lobby their local politicians, who respond out of their allocated congressional development funds in local water infrastructure projects like deep-well construction. This sustained the traditional patron-client political system dominated by local 'strongmen' and their political machines alluded to earlier.
13

Now, not only can local civil society mobilize independently,

POs like Waterlink can also tap into broad-based anti-water privatization networks like Bantay Tubig who are aware of the value of utilizing congressional support from minority politicians for

advocacy. Thedemonstration effect of Villanueva's associations and other POs like Waterlink has threatened the political machinery of local politicians so much so that water was a key issue in Taguig in recent legislative and local elections in May 2007 when Villanueva withdrew his support from Freddie Tinga's re-election campaign. This is despite their long-running close association in previous elections when Villanueva would mobilize support for Tinga. A shrewd political operator balancing the needs of his own community with his own agenda, and his assessment of local and national political dynamics, Villanueva's personal leftist political leanings has not prevented him in engaging with the conservative political machines of local politicians, local church groups and seeking out broader-based, sectoral NGOs like Bantay Tubig.
14

For more

politically modest leaders like Ruth, there is less space for manoeuvring that explains Waterlink's dependence on Villanueva in seeking various avenues of redress. Lessons learnt The experience of Taguig has shown that water service provision is bound up in local political contexts. Whilethe study does not penetrate into the 'gray zone of power' so thoroughly illuminated by Auyero's (2007) study of local politics in Argentina, the above case study has provided an indicative hint at the politics ofwater service provision at the local level, and how it relates to the wider debate on citizenship. Given thatthe local government was either unwilling or unable to address the issue, MWCI delegated water service provision to the POs outright rather than undermining or marginalizing the local community. The status of theurban poor with regards to their right to clean and affordable water has always been compromised by theMWSS. The privatization of the water sector had therefore provided a mobilized urban poor with not onlywater service, but also an economic livelihood and political empowerment in the face of encroaching clientelism. It was probably one of the first times a privatized water utility and an urban poor community association had worked together. It is also one of several different forms of political relationship between (mobilized) citizens and essential service providers in a post-privatization environment that suggest both advocates and dissenters of water privatization engage the issue in a variety of ways. In the Taguig case, the POs were re-empowered citizens, new customers and service providers all at once. This goes beyond any existing formulation of citizenship models from either global water welfarism or radical cosmopolitanism. Privatization alters the political opportunity structures that allow collective action from citizens, contentious or otherwise. Villanueva considered himself 'lucky' to have come across MWCI for his engagement with theprivate utility has paid off economically and politically. Despite the apparent ideological contradiction in their association - Villanueva remains a member of a leftist faction in a country with the world's longest-running Marxist insurgency - He is also in no hurry to disassociate

himself from MWCI despite pressure from the utility and the local government. He has plans to take the Taguig water PO model to other parts of Metro Manila like Antipolo. That the limited emancipation of the urban poor in Taguig has come about as a consequence of the universal but thin identity-conferring property of water is beyond a doubt, given the initial success of the nearly 90 POs providing water services in Taguig. The sustainability of this model, however, may be compromised not by 'local politics' but by the initiation and regulation of a culture in the community by POs, whereby the idea and practice of paying for water is produced and re-produced. Not only is the outlet for more militant collective action stymied as witnessed elsewhere in Metro Manila (e.g., Caloocan), the commodification of water and its decoupling from state provision prepared local communities for the smooth expansion of MWCI in expansion areas like Taguig. Hence, when the time came for the expansion of direct connection by MWCI (i.e., conversion), POs were no opposed to this. What they had problems with was the political context out of which conversion was taking place. The peoples' response to water privatization has not simply been a singular movement of resistance. As Bakker explained, 'alter-globalization' activists have realized the futility of 'rights talk' and are focusing instead on alternative concepts and institutions. Taguig has brought attention to themonumental challenges to the institutionalization of alternative models of urban water services, and by implication, a democratic cosmopolitan citizenship. Conclusion For community leaders like Villanueva, mobilizing communities for water may not be very different from mobilizing communities to demonstrate in the streets, or to vote for particular political candidates in local elections. It was due to the desire to support and fund the struggle for legal tenancy in Taguig that led Villanueva to first enquire about MWCI's bulk-selling programme as a business opportunity .15 This was yet another dimension of the 'entrepreneurship' displayed by community organizers such as Villanueva documented elsewhere (Karaos, 2006: 364). For Ruth's Waterlink however, it was simply an opportunity to provide a service for themselves and to the community. As inferred by Esguerra (2005: 41), essential services like water may form only part of the agenda of a local civil society embedded in local politics. In this context, citizenship is not simply rights, duties, identities and responsibilities. Citizenship - the debates and institutions as expressed in the local community - is the space, which theurban poor and marginalized exploit for their own purposes. It is in this space that the universal but thinly-identifed conferring property of water as a mobilizing source may be augmented, albeit temporarily. There is a greater recognition by the community that there are competing demands on them for their allegiance, custom and patronage. Rather than being passive 'takers', their active involvement places them at the forefront of citizenship

debates in relation to water privatization. The ultimate fate of the water POs and similar initiatives in Metro Manila and elsewhere will determine how far alternative models of urban water service delivery, and democratic citizenship, may be instituted. Footnote
1

The city was carved into two zones. The east zone was awarded to MWCI and its foreign partner,

Bechtel while the west zone was awarded to Maynilad and Suez/Ondeo.
2

Not her real name. Her identity is being protected as the future of POs is subject to ongoing

negotiations in the community.

3

Interview with Ruth, 11 April 2007. 'Nawasa' is the local community's name for piped water from

MWSS (previously the National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority).

4

Ninety-eight percent of the water supply of Metro Manila comes from the Angat Dam. The Barangay is the smallest local government unit in the Philippines. Bulk-water is the scheme by which MWCI charges a bulk rate of PhP19/m3 to community PO sub-

contractorsin Taguig who in turn, directly distribute water via individual connections to household under their own tariff calculation. Rates once again vary from PhP25/m3 to PhP35/m3 . Waterlink charges its customers PhP25/m3 . US$1 is equivalent to Philippine Pesos 44 (27 October 2007, Universal Currency Converter, http://www.xe.com).
7

Non-revenue water is water that is 'lost' before it reaches the customer. Losses can be real

losses (e.g., leaks) or apparent losses (e.g., pilferage or metering errors).

8

MWCI's water programme for poor communities, the 'Tubig Para Sa Barangay' programme (TPSB

- 'Water forthe Community') was developed in 1998. TPSB is primarily a bulk-water scheme.
9

While difficult to verify, it's worth noting that many in the local community believe that the

water POs were a threat to the existing deep-well operators in the area who had close links with politicians.
10

Interview with Noli Villanueva, 21 March 2007. Noli Villanueva has a long history in Taguig as a

community leader and activist on land tenure issues. A resident in Barangay Signal Village, he has been deeply involvedin local politics where his perceived leadership of the community has made him the enemy, and ally, of local politicians. He claims to have set up the first bulkwater PO in Taguig in partnership with MWCI. Water POs under him have been so economically successful that Villanueva has attempted to form similar Water POs inother cities in Metro Manila.

11

Interview with Noli Villanueva, 21 March 2007. In the first few years of the concession, both MWCI and MWSI were unable to aggressively

12

extend waterservices beyond the 'core' areas due to financial difficulties caused by the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
13

Interview with Ben Moncerate, former staff to a congressman in the Philippine House of

Representatives, 25 January 2007.

14

Bantay Tubig (Philippine Water Vigilance Network) is a 'citizens' coalition for adequate,

accessible and affordable water in the Philippines", http://ipd.ph/Bantay%20Tubig/webcontent/b2big_main.html.

15

Interview with Noli Villanueva, 25 January 2007.

References

Auyero, Javier (2007) Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina: The gray zone of state power , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bakker, Karen (2007) 'The "Commons" versus the "Commodity": Alter-globalization, antiprivatization and thehuman right to water in the global south', Antipode 39 (3): 430-455.

Balany, Beln, Brid Brennan, Olivier Hoedeman, Satoko Kishimoto and Philipp Terhorst (eds.) (2005) Reclaiming Public Water Achievements, Struggles and Visions from Around the World , Transnational Institute (TNI) & Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

Blaug, Ricardo (2000) 'Outbreaks of democracy', in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds.) Socialist Register 2000: Necessary and Unnecessary Utopias , London: Merlin.

Delanty, Gerard (2000) Citizenship in a Global Age: Society, Culture, Politics , Buckingham: Open University Press.

Esguerra, Jude (2005) Manila Water Privatization: Universal Service Coverage After the Crisis? , United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), unpublished manuscript.

Ferrer, Carmille Grace S. (2006) 'Alternative Approaches to Water Service Delivery in Hard-toReach Areas: Two cases from the Philippines', Paper read at Public Models of Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation in Rural Areas, Barcelona, 19-21 November.

Fox, Jonathan (1994) 'The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico', World Politics 46 (2): 151-184.

Franco, Jennifer C. (2004) 'The Philippines: Fractious civil society and competing visions of democracy', inMuthiah Alagappa (ed.) Civil Society and Political Space in Asia: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space , Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Hall, David and Emanuele Lobina (2004) 'Private and Public Interests in Water and Energy', Natural Resources Forum 28 : 268-277.

Karaos, Anna Marie A. (2006) 'Populist Mobilization and Manila's Urban Poor', in Aya Fabros, Joel Rocamora and Djorina Velasco (eds.) Social Movements in the Philippines , Quezon City, Manila: Institute of Popular Democracy.

Migdal, Joel S. (1988) Strong Societies and Weak States: State-society relations and state capabilities in the third world , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Morgan, Bronwen (2005a) Building Bridges Between Regulatory and Citizen Space: Civil Society Contributions toWater Service Delivery Frameworks in Cross-National Perspective: Centre for Socio-Legal Studies , University of Oxford, unpublished manuscript.

Morgan, Bronwen (2005b) 'Social Protests against Privatization of Water: Forging cosmopolitan citizenship?',in Marie-Claire Cordonier-Seggier and Christopher Gregory Weeramantry (eds.) Sustainable Justice: Reconciling international economic, environmental and social law , Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.

Morgan, Bronwen (2006) 'Emerging Global Water Welfarism: Access to Water, Unruly Consumers and Transnational Governance', in Frank Trentmannand John Brewer (eds.) Consumer Cultures, Global Perspectives , Oxford: Berg Press.

Sidel, John T. (1999) Capital, Coercion and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines , Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Stewart, Angus (1995) 'Two Conceptions of Citizenship', British Journal of Sociology 46 (1): 6378.

Stewart, Angus (2001) Theories of Power and Domination: The Politics of Empowerment in Late Modernity , London: Sage.

Tinga, Freddie 2006 'Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink', Manila Standard Today , 17 July. Word count: 4094 Society for International Development 2008

Indexing (details)
Cite Subject Studies; Privatization; Political behavior; Community action; Water supply Location Philippines Classification 9179: Asia & the Pacific 9130: Experimental/theoretical 1210: Politics & political behavior 1530: Natural resources Title Privatization and Citizenship: Local politics of water in the Philippines Author Chng, Nai Rui Publication title Development Volume 51 Issue 1 Supplement Water for People Pages 42-48 Number of pages

7 Publication year 2008 Publication date Mar 2008 Year 2008 Publisher Palgrave Macmillan Place of publication Houndmills Country of publication United Kingdom Publication subject Business And Economics--International Development And Assistance, Political Science-International Relations ISSN 10116370 Source type Scholarly Journals Language of publication English Document type Feature DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100444 ProQuest document ID 216913635 Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/216913635?accountid=31259 Copyright Society for International Development 2008 Last updated 2010-06-09 Database

2 databases View list

http://search.proquest.com/docview/216913635/140552AAF3258863134/3?accountid=31259

Adversaries versus Partners: Urban Water Supply in the Philippines

Neville, Kate J . Pacific Affairs 84.2 (Jun 2011): 245-265,216.
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In the Philippines, skepticism about private sector participation in urban water provision became increasingly pronounced as missed service targets and regulatory battles plagued governmental relations with the two companies (Manila Water and Maynilad) granted concessions for water provision in the capital, Manila. A comparative study of these two public-private partnerships (PPPs) reveals the challenges of reconciling bureaucratic and organizational dynamics with public suspicion of the private sector. This study draws on interviews and observations with corporate and government officials, academics, journalists, non-governmental organizations and civil society members in the Philippines, almost a decade after the initial privatization. This paper furthers our understanding of the outcomes in Manila-and PPPs more generally-by addressing thetension between credible commitment in contractual arrangements and flexibility for responding to economic and environmental shocks. It argues that adversarial interactions between the private corporations and regulators hindered the collaborative negotiations needed to respond to the currency crisis. Fear of public backlash against price increases and contract adjustments prevented the government and companies from engaging in meaningful joint problem solving. The differential outcomes of the companies illustrate therelevance of specific contractual arrangements and leadership in determining the impact of unforeseen shocks. However, the problems experienced by both companies indicates the need-if the private sector is to equitably and efficiently provide public goods-to redesign PPPs to increase transparency and to develop true partnerships. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

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TranslateFull text Turn on search term navigation Headnote ABSTRACT In the Philippines, skepticism about private sector participation in urban water provision became increasingly pronounced as missed service targets and regulatory battles plagued governmental relations with the two companies (Manila Water and Maynilad) granted concessions for water provision in the capital, Manila. A comparative study of these two public-private partnerships (PPPs) reveals the challenges of reconciling bureaucratic and organizational dynamics with public suspicion of the private sector. This study draws on interviews and observations with

corporate and government officials, academics, journalists, non-governmental organizations and civil society members in the Philippines, almost a decade after the initial privatization. This paper furthers our understanding of the outcomes in Manila-and PPPs more generally-by addressing thetension between credible commitment in contractual arrangements and flexibility for responding to economic and environmental shocks. It argues that adversarial interactions between the private corporations and regulators hindered the collaborative negotiations needed to respond to the currency crisis. Fear of public backlash against price increases and contract adjustments prevented the government and companies from engaging in meaningful joint problem solving. The differential outcomes of the companies illustrate the relevance of specific contractual arrangements and leadership in determining the impact of unforeseen shocks. However, the problems experienced by both companies indicates the need-if the private sector is to equitably and efficiently provide public goods-to redesign PPPs to increase transparency and to develop true partnerships. KEYWORDS: public-private partnerships; private sector participation; urban water; Philippines; contractual arrangements Introduction The rush for public-private partnerships (PPPs) for urban water provision in the 1990s slowed to a trickle bythe mid-2000s, as highly publicized examples of contract failures and lawsuits hit the media. In the Philippines, enthusiasm for private sector involvement1 turned into skepticism as missed service targets, rate hikes and regulatory battles plagued relations with the two companies granted concessions in 1997 forwater provision in the capital, Manila. The case of water provision in Manila is at times described as one of mixed success: Maynilad's legal battles with the government culminated in the termination of its contract, while Manila Water was able to resolve its conflicts and continue operations. By comparing these two publicprivate partnerships, we gain insight into the challenges of reconciling public suspicion of government capture by the private sector with the need for flexibility in renegotiations to respond to unforeseen shocks. The Asian financial crisis, hitting just months after the contracts for private water provision were signed, and compounded by El Nio-related drought, created significant obstacles for Maynilad in the west and ManilaWater in the east. Although Manila Water (unlike Maynilad) weathered the storm of the financial crisis and regulatory conflict, the company still experienced a rocky path to its present stability-and receives mixed assessments of its success in meeting service targets. The experiences in Manila provide insight into challenges facing PPPs in the

water sector, and demonstrate some of the factors that can mitigate or exacerbate these problems. The PPPs in Manila were designed as contractual relationships in which the government delegated the tasks of water services and delivery to the private companies. In this paper, I contend that the legal framework created between the government and the concessionaires was designed to address concerns about information asymmetries and guard against public backlash about private sector involvement in waterprovision, by providing monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, creating a regulatory office, and clarifying requirements through a contract. However, I further argue that this legal framework established adversarial interactions between the private corporations and regulators, with the perverse result of preventing thecollaborative negotiations needed to adjust contractual responsibilities effectively and equitably as external conditions changed.2 The differential outcomes of the companies illustrate the relevance of starting conditions and leadership indetermining the impact of unforeseen shocks (with Manila Water bearing a significantly lower debt load and exhibiting more effective management than Maynilad); nonetheless, the problems experienced by both companies indicates the need-if the private sector is to successfully participate in public goods provision-to redesign public-private partnerships to increase transparency, foster community participation in decision making, and develop true collaboration. These arguments are based on information gathered through interviews with key informants from government, international organizations, the corporate sector, non-governmental organizations and other sectors of civil society, along with an analysis of primary and secondary literature on the Manila PPPs. To make the case that adversarial relationships hindered contract renegotiations, and to explain the differential successes of the two companies, this paper proceeds in five sections. The first outlines the publicprivate partnerships in Manila.The second discusses contractual dynamics and public distrust of private sector involvement in waterprovision. Section 3 contends that while better initial contract conditions and stronger leadership might mitigate challenges posed by external shocks, they do not resolve problematic operational and regulatory environments. The fourth section assesses the contract renegotiations in Manila, and the final section draws out their broader implications for urban planning and water provision. Case Studies - Public-Private Partnerships in Manila For this study, a number of semi-structured interviews and conversations were conducted from May to August, 2006 (almost ten years after the initial privatization agreements were signed) to gain insight into the events that unfolded throughout the contracts. Interviewees were from sectors including government (for examplethe National Water Resources Board, the Department of

Natural Resources, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System), private companies (Manila Water and Maynilad), international organizations (for example the Asian Development Bank, the United States Agency for International Development), non-governmental organizations (for example Streams of Knowledge, Focus on the Global South, the Institute for Popular Democracy), and a multi-stakeholder group (the Water Dialogues). To maintain their confidentiality, comments and quotations from interviews are incorporated into the analysis, but are not attributed.3 Turning to the two PPPs, some descriptive history provides the basis for this analysis.4 Examining thecontracts over time allows us to delineate where initial commitments and pathdependent processes played a role in restricting the range of options perceived by decision makers as available.5 This is particularly important for an analysis focused on the processes and early stages of the concession agreements. In the 1990s, facing a dilemma between inadequate water services and burgeoning government utility debtin Manila, the government of the Philippines embarked on an ambitious water system reform that involved entering into service provision contracts with private companies.6 In 1997, the government water supply agency, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), signed two 25-year concession agreements for water provision in Metro Manila, and parts of the Rizal and Cavite provinces. Following theadvice of International Finance Corporation (IFC) consultants, the city was divided into two zones-the east and west-and each zone was awarded to a private contractor, after a competitive bidding process.7 Thecontracts were awarded to consortia that consisted of Filipino and international companies. The contract forthe west zone went to a company called Maynilad, made up of the French Suez-Ondeo and the FilipinoBenpres Holdings. The east zone contract was won by Manila Water, which was initially made up of theAmerican Bechtel, British United Utilities and Filipino Ayala Corporation, although Bechtel has since sold its shares and is no longer involved in the company. Maynilad had some early successes, especially in service expansion and pipe repairs, but this success was not lasting. Maynilad was unable to achieve financial stability, which compromised its capacity to invest in new infrastructure and provide reliable water services; its contract was terminated after lengthy negotiations and litigation.8 The government took control of water provision briefly in 2005, but has since "re-privatized" thesystem, after a new bidding process in 2006 won by a consortium led by the Filipino D.M. Consunji Inc. (DMCI), involving the Metro Pacific Investments Corporation.9 Conversely, while Manila Water struggled at the outset,10 it was able to overcome its difficulties and become financially stable and robust. The company has achieved financial stability, is now

listed on the PhilippinesStock Exchange, and provides consistent and relatively affordable water service. It meets most of its service targets, and has implemented some projects to expand water access in poor neighbourhoods. The situation in Manila has been extensively studied,11 particularly by civil society organizations, thus there are substantial resources upon which to draw when analyzing this experience. However, even some recent analyses have focused on single-factor explanations such as the issue of forprofit involvement12 or theabsence of a strong regulatory body13; this study claims a more complex set of explanatory factors for theobserved outcomes.14 It builds on existing work and furthers our understanding of the outcomes in Manila15-and PPPs more generally-by addressing the tension between credible commitment in contractual arrangements and flexibility for responding to economic and environmental shocks.16 This paper therefore extends our understanding of these partnerships and of considerations for water reform design.17 Private sector participation (PSP) has been seen as one potential solution to improving water access in thedeveloping world, but remains highly contentious.18 In many sectors, PSP was strongly promoted by international organizations as part of a trend to fix what was seen as general government inefficiency.19 Theinvolvement was generally in the form of public-private partnerships (a term that refers to a variety of forms of government contracts with private companies for different levels of service and operations), often concession contracts or build-operate-transfer arrangements,20 rather than complete divestiture of water systems by thegovernment. These leave some of the ownership and rights in the hands of the public sector, while capitalizing on the financial resources, technical expertise and greater political immunity (through their separation from electoral politics) of the private sector. Acheson argues that many studies of publicly and privately run water systems attribute success or failure purely to organizational form.21 Given the complexity of political systems, corporate institutions and societal structures, this has been recognized as a perfunctory analytical approach,22 and some scholars have instead identified public and private involvement along a continuum.23 Following literature that acknowledges institutional and organizational complexity,24 this paper puts aside debates over the dichotomy of public versus private ownership of urban water services; as one interviewee commented, "in a way Maynilad seemed a lot like a failed socialist public enterprise, not a capitalist one," in spite of the market mechanisms involved.25 This paper therefore aims instead to identify more effective strategies for management, regulation and operations to anticipate and adequately cope with political, economic and environmental shocks. Consequently, the focal areas in this analysis are the processes and contexts for water provision and negotiations in concession arrangements for urban water provision.26

Contractual Relationships In cases where actors (principals) are unable or unwilling to perform certain duties, they can delegate responsibility to others (agents). Arrangements in which the government delegates to private companies theresponsibility for operating and managing water services can increase efficiency, by allocating operational responsibilities to those with expertise and incentives to reduce costs, improve performance and deliver on targets. They also, though, are vulnerable to agency problems of "adverse selection" and "moral hazard" as a result of hidden information and hidden action, respectively, with the outcomes of omission (shirking) and commission (sabotage) if effective monitoring strategies are not developed.27 Mechanisms for containing agency loss include the ex ante strategies of contract design and screening processes and ex post strategies of monitoring and reporting requirements.28 Contracts, consequently, can act as credible commitment and enforcement mechanisms, which prevent agents from taking advantage of information asymmetries. To guard against agency problems (shirking and sabotage) and prevent thecompanies from unduly profiting without delivering on their promises, the government of the Philippinesestablished contractual relationships for water services in Manila. In efforts to establish a competitive and fair process for awarding monopoly contracts for each urban zone, the government focused on contracts that involved measurable service targets and a separate regulatory office.29 In a bidding process described by some observers as rushed and incomplete, where private sector participation was "fast-tracked" using the 1995 National Water Crisis Act,30 one interviewee said that parties had assumed that any unclear expectations could be resolved once the contracts had been established.31 However, an assumption of post-hoc contract adjustments relies on collaborative processes of continued negotiation among parties that trust each other. Such open discussions are difficult when relationships are mediated through courts and strict procedures, with the government acting in fear of public backlash against price hikes. The creation of a highly legalistic relationship, based on a contractual paradigm centred on issues of hierarchical information control and conflicts of interest, came at the expense of building true partnerships.32The arrangement became one of contractors and contractees rather than the development of a collaborative team. The focus on maintaining credibility and assuaging public concerns about for-profit involvement in waterservices through the creation of a binding and inflexible contract prevented the development of a relationship founded on dialogue and negotiation, and thus created adversaries rather than partners. This adversarial relationship prevented the clarification of responsibilities and requirements once the contracts entered into effect, and also hindered the resolution of new problems that arose from the financial crisis; rather

than engaging in a dialogue to resolve disputes, the companies ended up enmeshed in regulatory battles withthe government. Debt Loads and Management: Buffering the Shocks This section forwards the claim that better initial contract conditions and stronger leadership can overcome some of the challenges posed by external shocks and antagonistic relationships, and thus three key features-contract design, internal company management and responses to exogenous financial shocks-help explain thedifferential outcomes of Manila Water and Maynilad. It outlines the intersection of the two micro-level organizational features (contract structure and the management of transition processes) with an exogenous economic variable (the currency crisis) to provide the basis for explaining the divergence between the two seemingly similar PPPs.33 Although located in the same city, the companies had different service zones with socioeconomically distinct neighbourhoods and different levels of existing infrastructure. They also started out their contractual commitments with different debt loads and infrastructure investment obligations. While both were negatively influenced by the currency crisis and faced the same adversarial regulatory environment, Manila Water, which had a lower debt load (and consequently was less devastated by the collapse of the peso) and stronger corporate management, was able to overcome the challenges; starting from an economically more compromised position, and without strong management skills, Maynilad was unable to recover from theshocks. I. Contract Structure Although the frameworks of the contracts were similar, differences in details had a substantial impact on theoutcomes in the two zones. At the outset, the east and west zones differed in the extent of existing infrastructure and the dispersion of neighbourhoods they served. The consultants on the project, including experts from the IFC, argued that the east zone would require more infrastructure investment, and therefore high capital expenditure at the start, whereas the west zone, with more existing infrastructure, would have lower initial investment requirements. Since the government utility's debt was going to be transferred to theprivate companies, it was decided that the debt should be split unevenly between the two, to even out theinvestment imbalance. The initial division of debt between the concessionaires was such that Maynilad shouldered 85 percent of the debt. This created an economic difference between the companies in terms of risks incurred and how to leverage funding and loans. Multiple explanations have been put forth to explain the incentives that shaped contract formation. Low tariffs were considered necessary; this was explained by some observers as stemming from the "culture of freewater in the Philippines,"34 where there is an expectation

that the government should provide water,35 andthe need to protect the poor, since "even those who can pay are making trade-offs," such as sacrificing spending on health or education.36 Others countered that the government's motive for encouraging low tariffs was to gain political favour, with one claiming that "[Filipinos] don't have too much of a resistance to paying,"37 and another clarifying that "people are willing to pay, [but] the politicians are refusing to charge."38 The idea of corporations profiting from water provision also met with mixed reactions, with one explaining: "in[my organization] there is a good divide on that note-for some of us, it doesn't matter if the company makes a lot of profit as long as that profit results from its efficiency," but then qualifying the statement and hedging, "that profit should be limited there should be subsidies [for the poor]."39 Contract formation was influenced by this struggle between the financial demands of an indebted and overburdened system against concerns aboutthe commodification of water. The resulting arrangement was intended to be a compromise of sorts, recognizing both the need for commercial viability of the utility and the need for affordable water for citizens. Specific financial mechanism arrangements-namely the removal of the Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (CERA), and its replacement by the Extraordinary Price Adjustment (EPA)delayed the time period over whichthe companies could recover losses in the case of economic shocks, and was favoured by the government as a way to lower their risk in the deal. While the EPA was not ideal for the companies, as it decreased their ability to cope with economic uncertainty, it was seen as a necessary compromise for the deal to go through.The companies were aware of the risks, but were willing to accept them, given their optimism about thepartnerships. In part, it was this overenthusiastic optimism that allowed the contracts to go through, despite obvious flaws.40 There was a feeling amongst the negotiators, described by Dumol,41 that anything left unclear in the making of the contracts could be dealt with later. One interviewee hinted that the companies and government assumed rate rebasements could compensate for low initial bids, saying: "I can't believe that anyone could say that that was not a calculated thing."42 However, the capacity to adjust the contracts inlight of those gaps was not included, and thus in spite of the perceived potential need for future adjustments,the political nature of the contracts locked the parties into a track that was difficult to alter. II. Internal Management Project outcomes often depend highly on the presence of effective champions: individuals willing to take risks for the sake of project success.43 Although many analyses of public-private partnerships focus on contractual arrangements, risk allocation and investment environments,44 the interpersonal relationships between leaders and workers can also influence an organization's ability to fulfill its mandate. As explained by Klijn et al., "most PPPs are fairly complex and therefore require substantial managerial efforts in order to succeed."45 Theextent to

which hierarchy constrains the actions of local or lower-level managers and employees inorganizations has an impact on responsiveness to variable environments. That is, both the structure of organizations and the individuals within the organizations play key roles in how institutional arrangements are implemented. Autonomy in decision making can lead to greater incentives for individual responsibility and innovation; moreover, the resulting sense of ownership and personal accountability can improve the functioning of an organization. Delegation of authority, for example, provides more opportunities for the development of context-appropriate solutions to problems than is possible with rigid hierarchy.46 These management dynamics became particularly important in the transition from public to private control of operations in Manila. While institutional-level factors drove the divergence in outcomes of the companies, there was a role for individual action and gaps in leadership that, handled differently, could have altered the unfolding of events of either company; these help to explain some of the failures to adapt to the changing external conditions, particularlyin the case of Maynilad. Maynilad experienced a high management turnover rate, under the guidance of four different presidents in the course of less than ten years. While changes in a company's president do not necessarily undermine a company-noting, for instance, that Manila Water had two presidents over the same time period-in this case, it was a signal of the management troubles faced by Maynilad. For Manila Water, there was "clear continuity inleadership and management" with many people in high-level positions remaining in the company, while for Maynilad, the turnover apparently also extended to many of the company's executives and each new president had a different agenda and approach.47 A telling statement was made about Maynilad by one interviewee, who said: "Maynilad is a headless chicken [t]hey don't know who is really on top of things."48 Consequently, Maynilad encountered, according to one person interviewed, increasing internal tension between former government employees and the new private company staff over time.49 In addition, managerial weaknesses also influenced the decisions made about consultants and advisors: one interviewee claimed that Maynilad relied on poor financial advisors, which exacerbated the financial difficulties.50 The initial focus of Maynilad was on meeting compliance with technical requirements, which resulted in little attention being paid to the transition from a government to a corporate management approach. In contrast, Manila Water initially focused on internal reorganization and restructuring, developing a "culture of respect" for financial consideration, and creating a horizontal structure for the company that included autonomy for local managers and their teams.51 In interviews, it was explained that Manila Water held regular team meetings to share experiences and address problems; moreover, the decentralized management authority was described as empowering employees and increasing their interest in the company's success.52

Manila Water had initial tension as they implemented organizational change, but the changes resulted in a more stable, resilient company. As mentioned, the initial trajectories of the companies were very different from the final outcomes, in that Maynilad realized early successes and Manila Water struggled at the outset, but had opposite end results. This switch illustrates the value of looking at these agreements over time, as the ultimate survival of a company does not necessarily indicate that the targets were met throughout the life of the contract. The role of individuals-such as managers, and the incentive structures in which they operate-within the corporate and governmental organizations brings to the forefront both institutional factors and individual decisions as contributors to policy outcomes, and provides insight into government-corporate interactions within the PPPs. III. External Shocks Organizational structures, including contract design, internal management practices and leadership consistency, have a decisive influence on the ability of a utility to withstand and adapt to external variability.In the absence of external shocks, a flawed structure might operate passably, and have acceptable outcomes (for example, provide adequate access to water for citizens); however, this is not the case in the presence of exogenous stresses. Kingdon indicates a role for such "focusing events,"53 or crisis episodes, in creating space to change political and social arrangements. Critical juncture points, where shocks test the existing systems, may lead to change by exposing problems with the status quo. In isolation, the debt allocation, contract structure and management problems might not have crippled Maynilad. However, these factors were combined with a severe external shock. Only months after theconcession contracts went into effect, the Asian financial crisis hit. The Philippine peso dropped from a ratio of PHP26:1USD in 1997 to PHP50:1USD by 2000, which essentially doubled the dollar-denominated debt load ofthe company.54 This compromised Maynilad's ability to secure loans, and altered its anticipated financial plan, particularly given the replacement of the CERA by the EPA. The extent of this external shock had a significantly different impact on the two companies, in part because ofthe uneven allocation of debt. Although Manila Water had to operate under compromised economic conditions,the impact was much less severe. While we cannot develop a complete counterfactual for the relative effects of debt load and contract structure on each company, we can infer from the financial situation that Maynilad's troubles reflected its increased debt burden and inability to secure capital for infrastructure investment. Inanalyzing the companies' responses to the crisis, it appears that Manila Water had much greater flexibility inits coping strategies than did Maynilad. Different management practices

would not have eliminated the impact of the currency fluctuations on debt loads, but might have changed the decision-making processes and expenditures in the early stages of the contract. Speculatively, it is possible that with charismatic leadership and internal efficiency Maynilad could have had more success in negotiating temporary emergency measures, and might then have been able to survive the external shock. As the currency stabilized, a company with strong management may have been able to reorganize according to the new financial conditions, and find ways to adapt its operations. Manila Water was successful in spite of conflict-laden responses to economic and environmental shocks (thefinancial crisis and drought), in part owing to management skills and its relatively low debt load (at least compared with Maynilad). While it is unlikely that better management alone on Maynilad's side would have been sufficient to save the contract, the following section argues that its failures, and Manila Water's rocky trajectory to viability, could have been smoothed through more collaborative interactions; these could have fostered the public trust and channels for dialogue needed to facilitate greater flexibility in contract requirements. Such partnership might have removed the need for tense arbitration and reduced the negative impacts on customers. Flexibility in Contract Renegotiations Xun and Malaluan describe the Manila case as a "natural experiment" where the conditions for the two companies are similar enough to compare internal management practices and to explain variation in outcomes largely as the product of differing corporate governance strategies.55 Their analysis provides valuable insight into the cases, explaining the differing outcomes and revealing some of the ways in which managerial strategies and effective leadership can overcome difficult operating environments. However, additional factors might offer insight into how regulatory battles could have been prevented. Designing partnerships for greater transparency, and adopting collaborative approaches for identifying management weaknesses in the early stages of a partnership, could be part of innovative solutions that might prevent such weaknesses from causing insurmountable problems. The negative effects of currency fluctuations have been seen in utility privatization agreements,56 with particularly high risks in developing countries.57 There are institutional approaches that can mitigate these risks: for example, in a paper examining the relative success of Singapore in weathering the Asian financial crisis, Jin describes business sector strategies that can be used during times of economic stress, including flexible wage structures that allow for temporary wage cuts by compensating with supplements during economically stable times.58 Failure as a result of the currency crisis was not inevitable, but would have required mechanisms that allowed for changes to pre-set agreements.

Patashnik discusses the trade-offs between credibility and flexibility,59 in which building credible policy commitments leads to the risk of inflexible arrangements in the face of changing external conditions. While binding contractual agreements can provide some certainty to parties engaging in a risky partnership, they can lead to problems when unforeseen crises arise, since they tend to limit the range of available responses. InManila, the contracts did include some provisions for rate increases and renegotiation, but these proved inadequate to address the extreme economic shifts of the currency crisis, particularly when combined with drought and mistaken estimates for infrastructure investments. There are a number of country-related and foreign exchange risks involved in private sector investment in water services in Asia, including regulatory, political, foreign exchange, tariff formula, force majeure, and termination and compensation risks.60 Given these risks, the operating environment in many urban areas is not predictable; as one interviewee queried, "how can a mayor know that there will be a financial crisis [and] whether they're getting a great management team or a disaster?"61 Flexibility in addressing unanticipated, potentially non-linear, non-incremental changes in the economic, physical and social conditions is therefore an imperative; flexibility, in this context, refers to the ability to adjust and revise service targets, implementation strategies, water prices and management activities. The initial contract bidding process was designed with the aim of allaying public fears about private sector involvement, through making the process transparent, predictable and clearly defined.62 However, policies are dynamic and do not always lead to the intended ends;63 accordingly, their outcomes can diverge from their intended goals. Contracts represent both legal and social obligations, and governments cannot easily back out of them, for fear of political reprisal. The contract structure became a symbol of political credibility, particularly given skepticism about private sector involvement in water and fears about tariff increases. Changing theterms of the initial agreement-even in a case where it could salvage a failing contract-was seen as breaking that political promise, particularly since the companies were seen as contracted parties rather than as waterprovision partners. Reneging on the terms of the concession agreements was perceived as challenging thegovernment's ability to make credible commitments; this was particularly concerning for a Filipino government that was emerging from a rocky history of democracy and attempting to overwrite a legacy of corruption and mistrust. Pierson outlines the characteristics of processes with increasing returns, where switching paths consequently becomes more challenging as the process progresses.64 This seems to be a contributing factor to thestickiness of the contracts in the Philippines, since contracts that are difficult to establish at the outset, and that become further entrenched over time, are more challenging to change at later stages. The difficulties inchanging rules and expectations established

early in contract negotiations, combined with the lack of direct public involvement in the partnerships and negotiations, meant that there was little opportunity for theaffected stakeholders to be involved in developing solutions to address the financial and environmental challenges. In an analysis of the concept of path dependence, Greener describes how "structural and cultural 'conditionings'" can "create 'emergent properties' and 'situational logics'" that influence the incentives for actors to maintain and protect existing arrangements or systems, and can "'lock out' competing political ideas."65 In the water provision PPPs in Manila, the structural arrangements of the contracts reinforced thecultural (or ideational) value accorded to private sector participation by many of the parties involved (for example, government, companies and international organizations), and thus proponents of the contracts had a vested interest in upholding them. Even when faced with external shocks, the government and regulators were reluctant to change the terms of the contracts, based on these entrenched interests; moreover, thecontext of past struggles to gain public confidence intensified the government's fear that such renegotiations would undermine the credibility of its commitments in a political environment with already-shaky trust. While flexibility may have been needed to address the unforeseen pressures imposed by the currency crisis, increasing the opportunities to renegotiate outside of arbitration chambers and courtrooms can equally lead to problems. In interviews, both those conducted for this study and those reported by Kumar,66 observers and parties on both sides reported that the other parties had acted opportunistically in negotiations, and civil society observers expressed doubts about the neutrality and independence of regulatory authorities.67 One comment on the "need to eliminate familiarity between regulators and concessionaires," made by a government representative, illustrates this doubt, particularly as the person went on to link this to the"Filipino culture of 'pakikisama,'" described as a characteristic of cooperation and camaraderie that makes it difficult to say no to someone you have befriended.68 Others raised concerns about regulators' capabilities, with one commenting, "even if [the regulatory board was] independent, the individuals are a problem" and added, given the board's inexperience, it "needed institutional hand-holding."69 While these individuals' comments are not a decisive account of the impartiality or skill of the regulatory office, they highlight the public skepticism of flexibility in contracts that are not perceived to be transparent. Moreover, although there were attempts in the contracts to develop indicators of success, particularly through comparisons of the two monopolies, one interviewee stressed that these have not been effective in Manila. With the "extreme" divergence between the companies, benchmarking has little meaning, since "ManilaWater looks great compared to a disaster."70 Increasing the ability of companies and the government to conduct rate rebasements, service target alterations and other contract adjustments will not be an

effective tool for increasing PPP success unless it is accompanied by greater public engagement and improved evaluation strategies. The dilemma of renegotiation was apparent in the actions of the regulators, who, according to several of theinterviewees, agreed to compromises with the companies that they subsequently backed out of. The struggle between preventing tariff increases and allowing the companies to recover costs led to fluctuations in thedecisions made by the regulatory office. The companies were therefore stuck with mechanisms to recover losses that were incommensurate with the timing of cost recovery that they needed. The political lock-in ofthe contracts was reinforced by the political and social contexts in which they were operating, and complicated by the troubled relationships between Maynilad and the regulators. The antagonism in these relationships was evident as regulators and government officials acted with the central goal of protecting their organizations,71 aiming to maintain power and legitimacy, and constrained by contractual and institutional structures. Consequently, they did not act as collaborative partners seeking out mutual gains and minimizing shared losses. The value of community leadership and direct engagement in problem solving in the water sector has been addressed in the literature.72 Younger, for example, discusses concerns about the capture of community representative bodies by urban elites in Bolivia, but stresses that there are trends of improved direct engagement and popular participation in governance in the country.73 He emphasizes the need for involvement beyond simply providing information to the public,74 and points to lessons that can be learned from communitarian structures of social relations in the global South. In Manila, one interviewee underscored that "community buy-in is critical [when you] give community what they want in terms of service, they're excellent allies." This solution comes with a caveat: involvement in decision making might not always lead to more inclusive and equitable outcomes. In a network analysis comparison of water sectors in Ethiopia and Egypt, Luzi, Hamouda, Sigrist and Tauchnitz found that NGO involvement and decentralization increased the potential for "pluralistic policy making," but "does not seem to translate into significantly more integrated water policy processes and more effective water policies."75 Concerns about NGO representation were echoed in the Philippines, with one person commenting on the lack of representation in the privatization process, noting: "NGOs also don't work in this role because they are interest groups, not necessarily customers [they] often have other interests beyond just water that would skew the process."76 Another proposed solution-to extend decision-making power more directly to consumers-was also met with concern, with one explaining: "there is political risk involved if you give veto power to consumers, [since] it adds to the uncertainty faced by the private company and its creditors."77 Nonetheless (even with these potential challenges), overcoming public suspicion of water sector

operators, increasing the opportunities for dialogue, increasing procedural transparency, and consequently increasing possibilities for contract adjustment, are promising options for improving water provision arrangements, particularly in the context of concession agreements. The policy window for PPPs seems to have opened, with a global shift to private sector involvement in public utilities. The combination of international pressure for (and optimism about) private participation in water, inaddition to the realized success in the Filipino energy sector with privatization,78 set up political expectations about the range of options available for improving water services. This included creating partnerships between governments and the private sector, with only arms-length public participation. The involvement ofthe private sector did not doom the contracts to failure, but the specific arrangements created a situation where transparency was low, and thus commitment to the letter of the agreements trumped commitment tothe spirit of the partnerships. With an adversarial dynamic established at the outset, renegotiation was difficult, if not impossible, given thegovernment's fears of appearing to capitulate to corporate pressure. More collaborative approaches, with broad stakeholder participation, might have allowed the flexibility needed to respond to the economic and geographic challenges of water provision in the city. Conclusions According to one analyst, "[t]he years 2000 to 2003 saw the retreat of TNC investment in water due to national economic crises, social protest, and the difficulties of extracting profit delivering water to indigent consumers."79 While it is unusual for two distinct cases with divergent outcomes to occur within the same city, as occurred in Manila, the comment underscores that patterns of enthusiasm for public-private partnerships followed by rocky implementation, tense renegotiations and contract termination (in the case of Maynilad) have been repeated in many locations around the world. In particular, repeating trends include: investment and operational struggles following currency crises (for example, Argentina80 and Jakarta81); lack of public consultation and civil society resistance to private sector involvement (for example, Argentina82 and India83); pricing and ownership debates (for example, Bolivia84); and contract renegotiations and private sector withdrawals (for example, Argentina,85 China,86 Chile and Peru87). Consequently, the experiences in Manila illustrate some of the dimensions of contract and partnership development that have been observed elsewhere. While this analysis has focused on water provision, the experiences in Manila provide more general insight into the development of public-private partnerships for public goods and urban infrastructure, particularly theways in which the initial context, contractual arrangements and

organizational dynamics affect partnership outcomes. Most centrally, these cases reveal how political pressures can influence the structure of governing arrangements and relationships among stakeholders, and how these directly affect the ways in which organizations can respond to crisis. Legal constraints and tense interactions in Manila prevented effective engagement among state and non-state actors in responding to external shocks. In light of existing infrastructure conditions that only became known once Maynilad and Manila Water had taken over operations, and in the aftermath of the currency collapse in the Philippines, flexibility and greater opportunities for contract alterations might have been beneficial for the companies and for their ability to provide water services. However, in the absence of a transparent, inclusive partnership, there were fears that increasing the flexibility in the contract would only increase the opportunities for (and public concerns about) corruption, graft and private gain. While goodwill and friendly discussions might not have been enough to overcome an economic crisis and ideological divides, the lack of willingness to negotiate in good faith in conjunction with a bargaining process focused on profit maximization and blame-avoidance failed to produce outcomes that benefitted the public. This reveals the imperative of reconciling flexibility (to address new and unforeseen challenges) with transparency and accountability. Had multiple stakeholders and community members been integrated more fully into the water provision arrangements, the renegotiation of concession contracts may not have been seen asthe government capitulating to private pressures in back-room deals. Moreover, with greater community engagement from across socio-economic groups, issues beyond prices and company survival-including, notably, pro-poor policies and water provision-might have been addressed.88 Some analysts have suggested that the struggles with PPPs in Manila could have been mitigated by clearer initial contracts or greater independence of the regulatory authorities. In opposition, this analysis suggests that dynamic and uncertain futures for urban infrastructure and service provision are best addressed not through more rigid and explicit contracts and monitoring, but through the development of more collaborative, inclusive and robust partnerships that allow for negotiable contracts. In the Philippines, acting as adversaries rather than partners in contract renegotiations created a focus on zero-sum gains rather than on the mutual compromises required by both public and private players in the wake of the currency crisis. Focusing on fostering the conditions for mutual gains and open dialogue, rather than blame allocation and adversarial negotiations, might lead to more equitable, cost-effective and consequently successful private-sector participation in public goods provision. Although the enthusiasm for large private sector contracts for water provision in developing countries has been dampened, interest is still high in water sector reform and thus these lessons

may be of value inevaluating strategies for improving water and sanitation services. Reflecting on these experiences can therefore help urban water provision move beyond the politicized debates over public and private sectors, and towards strategies to foster collaboration among all stakeholders. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, January 2011 Yale University, New Haven, USA Footnote 1 Although there was not ubiquitous support for the PPPs even at the outset, there was enthusiasm in thegovernment and parts of the international community for private sector participation in urban infrastructure and services. 2 It also undermined the government's aim of strengthening its image as a respected centre of authority, failing to achieve what Shatkin identifies as one of the aims of urban planning, where he argues "urban planning in Metro Manila has at various junctures reflected the efforts of political actors at the national level to legitimize their rule." See Gavin Shatkin, "Colonial Capital, Modernist Capital, Global Capital: The Changing Political Symbolism of Urban Space in Metro Manila, the Philippines," Pacific Affairs 78, no. 4 (2005/2006): 579. 3 All interviews cited in this paper, unless otherwise indicated, were conducted in person by the author, inManila. Interviewees were initially contacted by email or phone, to set up these meetings. Some interviews were tape-recorded, but for most, the author took notes by hand during discussions. For each citation, thesector of the person interviewed is indicated. The author's advisor knew some of the participants ingovernment and the private sector at the time of the privatization arrangements, and so initial contacts were made through this link. Further contacts were found through the snowball method, or identified through government, company and NGO websites. Given the sensitivity of some of the information, and to protect confidentiality, interviewees have not been identified. 4 As Tim Bthe argues, narratives should be taken seriously within political analyses, since recognizing thetemporality of processes can provide insight into events and outcomes. See Bthe, "Taking Temporality Seriously: Modeling History and the Use of Narratives as Evidence," American Political Science Review 96, no. 3 (2002): 481-493. 5 On path dependence, see Paul Pierson, "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics,"The American Political Science Review 94, no. 2 (2000): 253. 6 This was part of the "fundamental restructuring of [major East and Southeast Asian cities'] built environment[s] in the form of mega-projects to reconstitute the urban core" discussed by Mike

Douglass, "Local City, Capital City or World City? Civil Society, the (Post-) Developmental State and the Globalization of Urban Space in Pacific Asia," Pacific Affairs 78, no. 4 (2005/2006): 545. 7 The city was divided into two zones to counter the potential opportunistic behaviour associated with monopoly arrangements of a single water provider. This approach induced indirect and artificial competition between the two providers, by creating side-by-side comparisons by which the companies could be judged. 8 See David Ehrhardt for a timeline, "Case Study: The MWSS Regulatory Regime," Castalia Advisory Group, Presentation to the World Bank, 5 July 2005. 9 Asian Development Bank, ADB Assistance to Water Supply Services in Metro Manila. Evaluation Study, Reference Number: SST: PHI 2008-31. Special Evaluation Study, September 2008. 10 It missed service targets in the early years of the contract, according to Wu Xun and Nepomuceno A. Malaluan, "A Tale of Two Concessionaires: A Natural Experiment of Water Privatisation in Metro Manila," Urban Studies 45, no. 1 (2008): 207-229. 11 See, for example, Jenina Joy Chavez and Nepomuceno A. Malaluan, "Of Rehabilitation, Bail Out and theDefense of Public Interest: A Short Update on the Failed Water Privatization in the Philippines," Polaris Institute, 2005; Mark Dumol, The Manila Water Concession: A Key Government Official's Diary of the World's Largest Water Privatization (Washington, DC: The World Bank Directions in Development Series, 2000); Jude Esguerra, "New Rules, New Roles: Does PSP Benefit the Poor? The Corporate Muddle of Manila's WaterConcessions, WaterAid and Tearfund," 2003; Raul Fabella, "Shifting the Boundary of the State: ThePrivatization and Regulation of Water Service in Metropolitan Manila," Working Paper 123, Centre on Regulation and Competition, 2006; Mandal Kumar, "Institutional and Regulatory Economics of Public Private Partnerships in Infrastructure: Evidences from Stochastic Cost Frontier Analysis and Three Case Studies of Urban Water Utilities" (PhD dissertation, George Washington University, 2009); Carla A. Montemayor, "Possibilities for Public Water in Manila," in Reclaiming Public Water: Achievements, Struggles and Visions from Around the World, eds. Beln Balany, Brid Brennan, Olivier Hoedeman, Philipp Terhorst and Satoko Kishimoto (Transnational Institute and Corporate Europe Observatory, 2005); Shane Rosenthal, "The Manila WaterConcessions and Their Impact on the Poor," working paper, Hixon Center for Urban Ecology, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 2001; Xun and Malaluan, "A Tale of Two Concessionaires," 2008. 12 For example, Montemayor, "Possibilities for Public Water in Manila," 2005.

13 For example, Mushtaq Ahmed Memon, Hidefumi Imura and Hiroaki Shirakawa, "Reforms for Managing Urban Environmental Infrastructure and Services in Asia," The Journal of Environment and Development 15, no. 2 (2006): 151-152. 14 In agreement with, among others, Kumar, Institutional and Regulatory Economics, 2009, especially 197-229; and Roel Landingin, "Loaves, Fishes and Dirty Dishes: Manila's Privatized Water Can't Handle thePressure," The Water Barons: The Center for Public Integrity, 2003, http://projects. publicintegrity.org/water/report.aspx?aid=51 (last accessed 18 February 2011). 15 Note, though, that this analysis focuses on the initial concessionaires and does not follow the outcomes after Maynilad's contract termination. 16 Economic shocks include events like a currency crisis, while environmental shocks refer to occurrences like droughts and floods. 17 Furthering this understanding is important, as we continue to see debates over the role of the private sector in water provision, as, for example, described by Wijanto Hadipuro, "Indonesia's water supply regulatory framework: Between commercialisation and public service?" Water Alternatives 3, no. 3 (2010): 475-491. 18 For instance, Robert R. Hearne, "Evolving Water Management Institutions in Mexico," Water Resources Research 40, W12S04 (2004), http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2004/2003WR002745.shtml (last accessed 18 February 2011) reports that "[i]n Mexico City, the continued participation of the private sector in service contracts has been met with popular and political resistance that has prohibited further private sector participation [PSP]." Additionally, Antonio Massarutto, Vania Paccagnan and Elisabetta Linares raise questions about efficiency gains from PSP in "Private management and public finance in the Italian water industry: A marriage of convenience?" Water Resources Research 44, W12425 (2008), http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2008/2007WR006443.shtml (last accessed 18 February 2011). 19 See Asian Development Bank, "Water For All: The Water Policy of the Asian Development BankOur Framework, Policies and Strategies," 2003, http://www.adb.org/documents/policies/ water/water-policy.pdf (last accessed 20 May 2010); Ken Conca, "The United States and International Water Policy," The Journal of Environment and Development 17, no. 3 (2008): 215-237; Michael Goldman, "How "Water for All!" Policy Became Hegemonic: The Power of the World Bank and its Transnational Policy Networks," Geoforum 38 (2007): 786-800; Jarmo J. Hukka and Tapio S. Katko, "Water Privatisation Revisited: Panacea or Pancake?" Delft, the Netherlands: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, 2003; and World

Bank, "Approaches to Private Participation in Water Services: A Toolkit," Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, 2006. 20 Bradford S. Gentry, "Public-Private Partnerships to Improve Urban Environments," review draft, Yale/UNDP Collaborative Program on the Urban Environment, 2004. (Later published in the proceedings of the Yale-IGES International Workshop on Urbanization and Environmental Change, New Haven, April 2004). 21 James M. Acheson, "Institutional Failure in Resource Management," The Annual Review of Anthropology 35 (2006): 117-134. 22 Gary H. Wolff and Meena Palaniappan, "Public or Private Water Management? Cutting the Gordian Knot," Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management (Jan/Feb 2004): 1-3. 23 Described by P.B. Anand, "Semantics of Success or Pragmatics of Progress?: An Assessment of India's Progress With Drinking Water Supply," The Journal of Environment and Development 16, no.1 (2007): 37-38; Karen J. Bakker, An Uncooperative Commodity: Privatizing Water in England and Wales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Jessica Budds and Gordon McGranahan, "Are the Debates on Water Privatization Missing the Point? Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America," Environment & Urbanization 15, no. 2 (2003): 87-114. 24 Including, for example, Karen Bakker, "Neoliberalizing Nature? Market Environmentalism in Water Supply inEngland and Wales," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95, no. 3 (2005): 542-565; Dirk Frans and John Soussan, "Water and Poverty Initiative Case Study Papers: What We Can Learn and What We Must Do," ADB: Water For All Series, 2003; Peter LundThomsen, "Assessing the Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in the Global South: The Case of the Kasur Tanneries Pollution Control Project," Journal of Business Ethics 90 (2009): 57-78; and Marie-Helene Zerah, "Early Outcomes of Public-Private Partnerships on Providing Water Supply to the Urban Poor: Lessons for India," International Conference on Sustainable Development of Water Resources: Socio Economic, Institutional and Environmental Aspects, Institute of Resource Management and Economic Development, 27-30 November 2000, New Delhi, India. 25 NGO, interview, May 1, 2006, Manila, Philippines. For a more thorough treatment of the challenges of marketization processes, particularly in an Asian context, see Edward Gu and Jianjun Zhang, "Health Care Regime Change in Urban China: Unmanaged Marketization and Reluctant Privatization," Pacific Affairs 79, no. 1 (2006): 49-71. 26 For summaries of types of PPP arrangements, see Darrin Grimsey and Mervyn K. Lewis, eds., The Economics of Public Private Partnerships (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2005), 10-14;

and Chris Skelcher, "Public-Private Partnerships and Hybridity," in Oxford Handbook of Public Management, eds. Ewan Ferlie, Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. and Christopher Pollitt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 347-370. 27 For discussions of principal-agent dynamics, see Terry Moe, "The New Economics of Organization," American Journal of Political Science 28 (1984): 739-777; and Kaare Strom, "Delegation and Accountability inParliamentary Democracies," European Journal of Political Research 37, no. 3 (2000): 261-289. 28 Strom, Delegation and Accountability, 2000. 29 See Mark Dumol, The Manila Water Concession, 2000, for a description of the contracts and bidding process. 30 David Hall, Violeta Corral, Emanuele Lobina and Robin de la Motte, "Water Privatisation and Restructuringin Asia-Pacific," Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), 2004, 19. 31 Private company, interview, 8 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 32 As described by Moe, The New Economics of Organization, 1984. 33 Also see Kate Neville, "Management Strategies and Institutional Barriers: An Analysis of PublicPrivate Partnerships in Water Management in Metro Manila, Philippines," Tropical Resources Bulletin 26 (2007): 31-35, and Xun and Malaluan, "A Tale of Two Concessionaires," 2008. 34 Researcher, interview, 12 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 35 Private company, interview, 20 July 2006, Manila, Philippines. 36 NGO, interview, 5 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 37 NGO, interview, 16 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 38 International organization, interview, 17 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 39 NGO, interview, 16 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 40 On this issue, Raul Fabella, in Shifting the Boundary of the State, 2006, 24, comments: "The excess of exuberance was ripe culture for such mistakes." 41 Mark Dumol, The Manila Water Concession, 2000. 42 NGO, interview, 16 May 2006, Manila, Philippines.

43 Tapio S. Katko, "The Need for Champions in Water Supply," Waterlines 12, no. 3 (1994): 1922. This was echoed by one interviewee who commented that it is not only the sets of rules agreed upon, but also "whether there are champions of the project, [and] whether there is strong leadership." International organization, interview, 17 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 44 See, for example, the summary of studies of critical success factors for PPPs in Young Hoon Kwak, YingYi Chih and C. William Ibbs, "Towards a Comprehensive Understanding of Public Private Partnerships for Infrastructure Development," California Management Review 51, no. 2 (2009): 58. 45 Erik-Hans Klijn, Jurian Edelenbos, Michiel Kort and Mark van Twist, "Facing management choices: an analysis of managerial choices in 18 complex environmental public-private partnership projects," International Review of Administrative Sciences 74 (2008): 254, 255. 46 On management dynamics, see, for instance, Philippe Aghion and Jean Tirole, "Formal and Real Authority inOrganizations," The Journal of Political Economy 105, no. 1 (1997): 1-29; and Roberta Lynn Satow, "Value-Rational Authority and Professional Organizations: Weber's Missing Type," Administrative Science Quarterly 20, no. 4 (1975): 530. As a caveat, though, note that Claus W. Langfred, "Too Much of a Good Thing? Negative Effects of High Trust and Individual Autonomy in Self-Managing Teams," The Academy of Management Journal 47, no. 3 (2004): 385399, finds that low monitoring with high individual autonomy can lead to low team performance. 47 Private company, interview, 8 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 48 NGO, interview, 16 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 49 Private company, interview, 27 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 50 Consultant, interview, 17 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 51 Private company, interview, 8 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 52 Private company, interview, 2 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 53 John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1995), 197. 54 Esguerra, New Rules, New Roles, 2003. 55 Xun and Malaluan, A Tale of Two Concessionaires, 2008.

56 Kate Bayliss, "Privatization and Poverty: The Distributional Impact of Utility Privatization," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 73, no. 4 (2002): 603-625; Leopoldo RodrguezBoetsch, "Public Service Privatisation and Crisis in Argentina," Development in Practice 15, nos. 34 (2005): 302-315. 57 Jennifer Davis, "Private-Sector Participation in the Water and Sanitation Sector," Annual Review of Environmental Resources 30 (2005): 145-183. 58 Ngiam Kee Jin, "Coping with the Asian Financial Crisis: The Singapore Experience," Visiting Researchers Series-Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 8 (2000): 1-38. 59 Eric M. Patashnik, "Unfolding Promises: Trust Funds and the Politics of Precommitment," Political Science Quarterly 112, no. 3 (1997): 431-452. 60 Listed by a participant at a conference held by the Asian Development Bank in Manila, 31 May 2006. These risks are echoed in Seungho Lee's analysis of the Chinese water market, "Development of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Projects in the Chinese Water Sector," Water Resource Management 24 (2010): 1925-1945. 61 Researcher, interview, 17 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 62 Mark Dumol, The Manila Water Concession, 2000. 63 Arnold J. Heidenheimer, Hugh Heclo and Carolyn Teich Adams, Comparative Public Policy: The Politics of Social Choice in America, Europe, and Japan, Third Edition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 11. 64 Pierson, Increasing Returns, 2000, 253. This analysis of the Philippines draws on an understanding of theterm derived from Scott E. Page, "Path Dependence," Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1 (2006): 88, inwhich self-reinforcement (where "making a choice or taking an action puts in place a set of forces or complementary institutions that encourage that choice to be sustained") is one of the possible causes of path dependence, and can be used to help understand the trajectories of government policy making. 65 Ian Greener, "The Potential of Path Dependence in Political Studies," Politics 25, no. 1 (2005): 65, 68. Greener's article aims to clarify and develop a more "coherent framework" (62) for the concept of path dependence. 66 Kumar, Institutional and Regulatory Economics of Public Private Partnerships in Infrastructure, 2009.

67 Researcher, interview, 17 May 2006; NGO, interview, 1 May 2006; Journalist, interview, 6 June 2006, all inManila, Philippines. 68 Government, interview, 8 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 69 International organization, interview, 17 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 70 Government, interview, 8 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 71 See Miriam Golden, "The Politics of Job Loss," American Journal of Political Science 36, no. 2 (1992): 411, for a similar analysis of officials, in her study of job loss in the automotive industry. 72 See, for example, David Hall and Emanuele Lobina, "Profitability and the Poor: Corporate Strategies, Innovation and Sustainability," Geoforum 38 (2007): 772-785, although note that they remain skeptical of thevalue of multinational corporate involvement in the sector. 73 Paul L. Younger, "Pro-poor Water Technologies Working Both Ways: Lessons from a Two-way, South-North Interchange," Geoforum 38 (2007): 836. 74 Younger, Pro-poor Water Technologies Working Both Ways, 837. 75 Samuel Luzi, Mohamed Abdelmoghny Hamouda, Franziska Sigrist and Evelyne Tauchnitz, "Water Policy Networks in Egypt and Ethiopia," The Journal of Environment Development 17, no. 3 (2008): 264-265. 76 Government, interview, 8 June 2006, Manila, Philippines. 77 NGO, interview, 16 May 2006, Manila, Philippines. 78 Mark Dumol, The Manila Water Concession, 2000. 79 Peter T. Robbins, "Transnational Corporations and the Discourse of Water Privatization," Journal of International Development 15 (2003): 1073. 80 Robbins, Transnational Corporations, 2003, 1078-1079. 81 Achmad Lanti, "A Regulatory Approach to the Jakarta Water Supply Concession Contracts," International Journal of Water Resources Development 22, no. 2 (2006): 255-276. 82 Alexander J. Loftus and David A. McDonald, "Of liquid dreams: a political ecology of water privatization inBuenos Aires," Environment and Urbanization 13 (2001): 183.

83 Govind Gopakumar, "Transforming water supply regimes in India: Do public-private partnerships have a role to play?" Water Alternatives 3, no. 3 (2010): 492-511. In his analysis, Gopakumar documents theresistance to private sector involvement in water and sanitation in Chennai, its abandonment in Bengaluru, and its weakening in Kochi, based on entrenched political power, antiprivatization campaigns, and civil society resistance, respectively. 84 Susan Spronk, "Roots of Resistance to Urban Water Privatization in Bolivia: The 'New Working Class,' theCrisis of Neoliberalism, and Public Services," International Labor and Working-Class History 71 (2007): 8-28. 85 Ana Hardoy and Ricardo Schusterman, "New models for the privatization of water and sanitation for theurban poor," Environment & Urbanization 12, no. 2 (2000): 63-75. 86 Private sector withdrawals have been seen for various reasons, with one example in China attributed tothe removal of guaranteed rates of return by the government, leading to the withdrawal of Thames Waterfrom Shanghai in 2004; see Lee, Development of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Projects, 2010, 1934. However, Lee also notes that private company involvement by a number of MNCs, including Suez and Veolia, continues in some Chinese cities. 87 Roger Noll, Mary M. Shirley and Simon Cowan, "Reforming Urban Water Systems in Developing Countries,"in Economic Policy Reform: The Second Stage, ed. Anne O. Krueger (University of Chicago Press, 2002), 243-291. 88 For a discussion of the failures of the private sector to supply water to the poor, see, for instance, Karen Bakker, "Trickle Down? Private Sector Participation and the Pro-poor Water Supply Debate in Jakarta, Indonesia," Geoforum 38 (2007): 855-868. AuthorAffiliation Kate J. Neville* * Support and funding for this work were provided through a visiting research fellowship at the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Philippines, a Fulbright-OAS Ecology Initiative Award, grants from the Coca-Cola World Fellowship Fund, the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology and the Yale Tropical Resources Institute. For research guidance, and for comments on earlier drafts, I thank Catherine Benson, Ben Cashore, Genevieve Connors, Peter Dauvergne, Brad Gentry, Jacob Hacker, Lukas Neville, Sheila Olmstead and Mario Delos Reyes. Thoughtful comments from several anonymous reviewers greatly improved the manuscript. I am also grateful to many people and organizations in the Philippines for their generous assistance, including, among others: Ramon Alikpala, Robert Basilio, Chingbee Cruz, Mary Ann Dela Pena, Jude Esguerra, Mai Flor, Mary Ann Manahan and Rory Villaluna.

AuthorAffiliation KATE J. NEVILLE is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science and a Liu Scholar at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. A recent publication (with Peter Dauvergne) is "Forests, food, and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuels," Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 37, no. 4 (2010): 631-660. Email: kate.neville@aya.yale.edu. Word count: 9823 Copyright University of British Columbia Jun 2011

Indexing (details)
Cite Subject Contract negotiations; Studies; Private sector; Sanitation services; Nongovernmental organizations--NGOs; Development banks; Agreements; International organizations; Water supply; Water shortages Title Adversaries versus Partners: Urban Water Supply in the Philippines Author Neville, Kate J Publication title Pacific Affairs Volume 84 Issue 2 Pages 245-265,216 Number of pages 22 Publication year

2011 Publication date Jun 2011 Year 2011 Publisher Pacific Affairs. The University of British Columbia Place of publication Vancouver Country of publication Canada Publication subject History--History of Asia, Political Science, Business And Economics ISSN 0030851X Source type Scholarly Journals Language of publication English Document type Feature ProQuest document ID 869917823 Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/869917823?accountid=31259 Copyright Copyright University of British Columbia Jun 2011 Last updated 2012-01-25 Database 3 databases View list

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Waste Management; TGEG to Help Philippines With $240 Million Purchase for RDF Waste Converter Machines
China Weekly News (Nov 22, 2011): 318.
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Ronald Flynn, the founder of True Green Energy Group stated, "PACIFICTECH is helping TGEG and SBSC by reducing the volume of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) through the installation of the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) machine that will generate income to the constituents of the local government."

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TranslateFull text Turn on search term navigation 2011 NOV 22 - (VerticalNews.com) -- True Green Energy Group (TGEG) (Frankfurt: TGG.F) Today, TGEG met with members of PACIFICTECH in order to conclude a gargantuan agreement to help the Philippines. Ronald Flynn, the founder of True Green Energy Group stated, "PACIFICTECH is helping TGEG and SBSC by reducing the volume of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) through the installation of the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) machine that will generate income to the constituents of the local government." Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) or solid recovered fuel/ specified recovered fuel (SRF) is a fuel produced by shredding and dehydrating solid waste(MSW) with a Waste converter technology. RDF consists largely of combustible components of municipal wastesuch as plastics and biodegradable waste. The Philippines is looming with garbage problems despite the passage of the Ecological Solid WasteManagement Act or the Republic Act (RA) 9003. The National Solid Waste Management Commission shows that there are 677 open dumpsites, 343 controlled dumps, and 21 landfills in the country. An additional 307 dumpsites are subject for closure or rehabilitation plans but without definite schedules for enforcement. Mismanagement of waste has serious environmental consequences: ground and surface water contamination, local flooding, air pollution, exposure to toxins, and spread of disease. Many of the disposal sites contain infectious material, thus threatening sanitation workers and waste-pickers. In the proposed agreement TGEG would purchase 30 machines from PACIFICTECH totaling approximately $240,000,000 million United States dollars. This purchase would cover the delivery and construction of the gasification systems to each one of the 30 sites currently under contract. PACIFICTECH gave a time line that it could build, delivery and deploy the 30 machines in approximately 6 months. It was also discussed that in 45 days Voga Brazil would start

constructing its first system under its partnership with TGEG and would be secondin line to receive a system behind the San Fernando site in Pampanga Philippines. As part of the agreement True Green Energy Group, CJ consortium, and member's of Voga Brazil would fly to the plant on November 11, 2011 to Korea to see the factory and the working unit as specified in the agreement. Recognizing the importance of the environment's immediate recovery and effects of improper wastemanagement to the Philippines is mandatory. Renato Lee III, chief executive officer of TGEG, added, "there is a need for understanding and reformation of attitudes and concern towards the protection of the environment. Using our Bio green system and MRF waste segregation system can prevent the impending garbage crisis that will save lives and clean up our country. Ronald Flynn Founder and Chairman of the board of TGEG, SBSC, and True Bio Electric said, "It is also very important that people understand our goal and our vision. We want to help people live normal lives with good food, clean water, and shelter. The fact is with our new partner CJ consortium and their technology for building affordable homes we will be able to both clean up the landfill sites and help poor homeless families live in real homes in nice areas. "The Philippines has a total population of 82 million, dispersed across thousands of islands, of which forty percent live in slums. It should come as no surprise that these areas are characterized by limited access to basic services, no legal land tenure and insecure shelter generally on the least appealing plots of land. A high percentage of Filipino slum dwellers live in areas where they are vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters such as along shorelines, around dumpsites, under bridges and on hillsides." True Green Energy Group has already made commitments to use its one billion euro credit line to help the country of the Philippines and change the living conditions of poor Pilipino family's. It should also be known that TGEG has already started to employ poor family's who live on or around the San Fernando landfill site. True green energy group also signed an exclusive contract with True Bio Electric to deploy additional pelletizing machines for every landfill site that will increase the profits to both its public company and the local municipalities and government. True Bio Electric is a private company in the Philippines that will use its current financing to build, operate, and deploy RDF converter machines. The RDF will be sold to and used in a variety of ways to produce electricity. It can be used alongside traditional sources of fuel in coal power plants. In Europe RDF can be used in the cement kiln industry, where the strict standards of the Waste Incineration Directive are met. RDF can also be fed into plasma arc gasification

modules, pyrolysis plants and where the RDF is capable of being combusted cleanly or in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, RDF can provide a funding source where unused carbon credits are sold on the open market via a carbon exchange. TBE will initially deploy 40 units to be used on all TGEG, SBSC, and Voga Brazil landfill sites. The estimated price for the sell of pellets can range from a low price of $60 USD per ton to $300 dollars per ton. Each system should be able to pelletize 1000 tons per day. In closing Bunny Lee the environmental ambassador for TGEG said, "If you want to understand our company then you should know that are company is all about helping people and the environment. The bottom line is that our country is having a hard time treating and handling the 13 billion kilos of solid waste its 82 million residents generate annually. The Good News is TGEG along side its partner CJ Consortium can help create a better greener Philippines while providing affordable housing to those less fortunate." This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of the 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. Keywords: Asia, Sanitary Engineering, Public Health Practice. This article was prepared by China Weekly News editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2011, China Weekly News via VerticalNews.com. Word count: 1020 (c)Copyright 2011, China Weekly News via NewsRx.com

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Cite Subject Landfill; Environmental protection; Construction contracts; Surface water; Agreements Title Waste Management; TGEG to Help Philippines With $240 Million Purchase for RDF Waste Converter Machines Publication title China Weekly News

First page 318 Publication year 2011 Publication date Nov 22, 2011 Year 2011 Publisher NewsRx Place of publication Atlanta Country of publication United States Publication subject General Interest Periodicals--China ISSN 1945-5968 Source type Trade Journals Language of publication English Document type Expanded Reporting ProQuest document ID 904103195 Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/904103195?accountid=31259 Copyright (c)Copyright 2011, China Weekly News via NewsRx.com Last updated 2011-11-16 Database ProQuest Asian Business & Reference

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