Water for Sale?

This week, I will be focusing on the issue of the unequal burden of water privatisation on women. Water privatisation is, unarguably, one of the water crisis’ most contended topics although its mostly negative impact on the livelihoods of women is rarely discussed. I thought the best way to approach this would be to critically analyse a case study - after some research, I came across a paper by Rebecca Brown entitled ‘Unequal Burden: Water Privatisation and Human Rights in Tanzania’ which seemed to encapsulate both sides of the story. 

Brown starts by setting the context by describing how the social system in Tanzania, as in many African countries, emphasises the role of women as being responsible for the provision and maintenance of water in the household. Hence, the lack of presence of a fair public water system often has a disproportionate impact on women since ‘they are the ones who generally have to fill in when the state abdicates its social service responsibilities’ (Yamin 2005,1233). Brown identifies a number of shortcomings to the mechanisms behind water privatisation - namely the application of a business model approach to such a human-rights based issue as water provision. Although Brown’s general conclusion is that water privatisation puts an unequal burden on women, she also clearly states that this is a result of the inherent gender discrimination in African societies, whereby women are sacrificing their education, health and livelihood to ensure sufficient water is available for their household (as has been discussed in previous posts in the blog). 

Nonetheless, progress is under way. In the past couple of years, there have been an increase in civil societies in Tanzania speaking out against water privatisation and its impact oh human rights; and prominently on the human rights of women. One particular concern they expressed was contract renegotiation, where private water providers bid low on contracts and then demand renegotiation by stating they had “inadequate information”. This has especially negative consequences on severely poor countries like Tanzania, where the livelihoods of individuals are reliant on this source of water supply. 

Brown does not seem to offer concrete solutions to the issue (apart from suggesting an immediate halt in water privatisation which seems unlikely at this stage). My suggested solutions would be to involve women in the decision-making process - from the designing of the project to the implementation and monitoring. However, I will be addressing the exact importance of women entering the spaces of social, political and economic power in more detail on my next post. Watch this space...