Water as a public service and implications for the health of the people: the importance of urban sewerage
- Resumen
- The extension of water and sanitation systems is recognised as one of the greatest contributions to public health. The historic development of these systems has been achieved through the use of public finance, not through full cost recovery and private providers. In this context, taxation policies are far more important than full cost recovery. Some of the largest developing countries are choosing to pursue similar policies, with effective results. The costs are affordable for countries with the great majority of the population needing connections, with some specific low income countries clearly in need of aid to accelerate their development of systems. The importance of public finance and government policy has been obscured by the insistence of donors on involvement of the private sector. It has also been undermined by poorly-based attacks on corruption as a cultural problem specific to developing countries; by focusing the question of affordability on global aid rather than national public finances; and arguments that water and sewerage systems are northern cultural phenomena which are inappropriate and/or unaffordable in the global south. The donor policy recipe has resulted in delayed and inadequate development of water and sanitation systems, at great cost to people in developing countries, but at no cost to donors themselves. Advocacy of private sector approaches remains in the career interests of officials and politicians in donor countries. Water and sanitation policies need to be driven by national and local policy decisions, not global donor analyses, for the sake of both accountability and economic effectiveness.
- Autor
- Hall, David; Lobina, Emanuele
- Palabras Clave
- Programas de financiación, Sanidad, Política ambiental, Calidad del agua
- Idioma
- Inglés
- Documentos
- Ponencia ( 17 pag, 503 Kb )
- Presentación
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- Documento Final Semanas Temáticas
- Conclusiones Tribuna del Agua
- Existe un Video disponible en el Centro de Documentación