World Water Day & International Experience in Achieving Efficient and Sustainable Water Services

Michael Rouse
World Water Day Symposium
Beijing
22 March 2005

Structure of Presentation

-The meaning of World Water Day
-The Public-Private argument
-A model for developing efficient and sustainable water service providers
-International trends towards efficient and sustainable water services
-Summary

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The Meaning of WWD

-1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro
-The theme of World Water Day 2005 is: Water for Life 2005 – 2015
-To me it is the opportunity to raise the profile of water
in the media
to give better understanding to the general public
-Generally it has become an annual day event for promoting good things eg WaterAid
-But also a day which a minority use for their propaganda. eg - the anti-privatisation lobby

Anti-Privatisation

·Water Wars - the global campaign against water privatisation
-World Development MovementLondon, -United Kingdom, 22 Mar 05
·A Conference with speakers from around the world
·Strange to hold the event in a country where privatisation has been so successful
·Also strange that there is not an equivalent conference on the failures of public utilities
·But privatisation is an emotive issue

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The Public/Private Argument

·The argument has become a diversion from consideration of the real issues
·The anti-privatisation lobby damaged Kyoto WWF because it diverted attention from what needed to be done to meet the MDGs
·I believe that the real questions relate to institutional structures and effective regulation
·With those in place
-Public utilities have been shown to improve
-Operations have been contracted out successfully to the private sector
·So what achieves efficiency and sustainability

The Elements necessary for Efficient and Sustainable Water Services

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