22 March is World Water Day. Take a look at our work on water in the developing world
IIED is marking WORLD WATER DAY with a focus on our latest work in
Improving water and sanitation provision in deprived urban settlements
Payments for Watershed Services
All that glitters. A review of payments for watershed services in developing countries
Ina Porras, Maryanne Grieg-Gran, Nanete Neves
A growing international debate calls for downstream beneficiaries of wise upstream land and water use to dig into their pockets and pay. IIED stimulated the debate several years ago with a ground-breaking review of the scene. Now we have gone further - with this in-depth international review and analysis of all accessible ongoing initiatives and advanced proposals for market mechanisms for watershed services.
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Fair deals for watershed services in Bolivia
Maria Teresa Vargas, Nigel Asquith
Although Bolivia is one of the countries with the most water per capita in the world, and demand is about 1% of supply, localised water scarcity continues to breed conflicts. This report assesses whether market tools can improve watershed management, and the livelihoods of watershed residents. It describes the studies commissioned as part of the analysis, what they were intended to assess, and their findings. The report concludes by offering lessons learned for negotiating fair deals for watershed services in Bolivia.
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Fair deals for watershed services in the Caribbean
Sarah McIntosh, Nicole Leotaud
This report describes an action-learning project led by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) that strengthened the capacity of national and regional institutions to assess the potential of economic instruments to improve the quality and delivery of watershed services in the Caribbean. It focuses on project sites and case studies in Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, while drawing on lessons of wider regional and international interest.
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Fair deals for watershed services in India
Chetan Agarwal, Sunandan Tiwari, Mamta Borgoyary, Amitangshu Acharya, Elaine Morrison
This report shares field experience and lessons in developing incentive-based mechanisms for watershed protection services and improved livelihoods at micro- and macro-scales at three locations in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The process, progress and problems in the three sites, and the initial findings, are presented. Key lessons are discussed and specific recommendations made.
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Fair deals for watershed services in Indonesia
Munawir, Sonja Vermeulen
Indonesia, like many countries, faces growing problems with water. Concerns include floods, low dry-season flows, sedimentation, contamination from run-off, and rising demand among competing end-users. This report describes action research in Indonesia to take forward local environmental service payment initiatives at two sites, Brantas and Cidanau, and to spread learning more widely among interested people across the country.
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Fair deals for watershed services in South Africa
Nicola King, Russell Wise, Ivan Bond
This report reviews the potential of developing payments for catchment protection services in the upper Ga-Selati sub-catchment and the Sabie Sand catchment. The study indicates that there is most potential for developing a payment mechanism between the buyers and sellers of catchment protection services in Ga-Selati, where improving the transport and storage of water would be the most cost-effective intervention. Key lessons and conclusions arising from the process, baseline studies and analyses of this review are presented.
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Discussion Papers - Water
Governance and getting the private sector to provide better water and sanitation services to the urban poor
Gordon McGranahan and David Satterthwaite
A decade ago, public and private water and sanitation were typically presented as very distinct alternatives. Today effective governance is more often presented as a necessary ingredient of private service provision. This working paper examines some of the false starts and misleading statistics, and then goes on to review some of the widely promoted principles of water and sanitation governance (such as transparency, inclusivity, coherence and equity) and what they imply for private water provision in deprived urban areas. Particular attention is given to the local regulation of private provision, the relevance of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and the challenge of corruption.
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Informal water vendors and the urban poor
Marianne Kjellén, Gordon Mcgranahan
While large private water companies grab the headlines, it is more often small private vendors that bring water to the urban poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This working paper looks at how water-vending systems operate, how effective they are in meeting the needs of the urban poor, and how this effectiveness might be improved. The paper concentrates on the small-scale and informal vendors, most of whom work independently with very little capital. Nevertheless, they display enormous diversity and flexibility, and are adept at responding to the needs of all but the very poorest households.
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Lessons from Karachi: The Role of Demonstration, Documentation, Mapping and Relationship Building in Advocacy for Improved Urban Sanitation and Water Services
Arif Pervaiz, Perween Rahman, Arif Hasan
The aim of this study report is to highlight the importance of mapping and documentation, for effective relationship building and advocacy. The report discusses how demonstration of solutions and the documentation and mapping, which are at the heart of the Orangi Pilot Project- Research and Training Institute’s (OPP-RTI’s) work, established the grounds on which relations with both government and communities were built. It identifies formal and informal processes, underscoring how these relationships have been nurtured over time. Thus the report delves deeper into the process and strategy for advocacy than have the numerous other publications on OPP-RTI which have covered this aspect of the project only in brief.
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Local water and sanitation companies and the urban poor
Gordon McGranahan with David Lloyd Owen
Between the handful of multinationals that dominate the international market, and the millions of informal enterprises that can be found in so many deprived urban neighbourhoods, are a growing number of local water companies finding new markets for water and sanitation. These range from the aguateros of Paraguay, to the water tankers of Accra, to the national and expatriate water companies that are increasingly competing for water and sanitation contracts in parts of Asia. This paper reviews the roles that they play, the markets they service, and the possibilities for getting them to provide better services for the urban poor.
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Privatization and the Provision of Urban Water and Sanitation in Africa, Asia and Latin America
Gordon McGranahan, Jessica Budds
This paper has two principal aims: first, to unravel some of the arguments mobilized in the controversial privatization debate, and second, to review the scale and nature of private sector provision of water and sanitation in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
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