{"id":22896,"date":"2012-11-12T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=22896"},"modified":"2012-11-07T13:52:14","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T13:52:14","slug":"water-from-privatisation-to-corporatisation-and-the-need-for-a-counter-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/11\/water-from-privatisation-to-corporatisation-and-the-need-for-a-counter-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Water: From Privatisation to Corporatisation and the Need for a Counter-Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 15<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0and 16<sup>th<\/sup> of March FIVAS\u00a0launched and presented its new report at the alternative water forum\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fame2012.org\/en\/tag\/marseille\/\" >FAME<\/a><\/span>, a counter-event to the<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwaterforum6.org\/en\/\" >World Water Forum<\/a> in\u00a0Marseille,\u00a0France. The report explores the development from privatisation to<em> corporatisation,<\/em><em> <\/em>within neoliberal policy on urban water services in developing countries.\u00a0It calls for the water justice movement to update and adjust its strategy, in order to counter the neoliberal tactical shift towards corporatisation. Corporatisation reform entails the implementation of commercial neoliberal management principles within public sector water utilities.<\/p>\n<p>This report documents the development within the World Bank\u2019s neoliberal strategy on urban water services in developing countries and examines case studies of corporatisation projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study contributes to an understanding of corporatisation reform; as a strategic renewal of the neoliberal policy, to overcome problems encountered by the privatisation strategy. These problems made new water privatisation projects difficult to realise, and includes resistance against privatisation as well as the lack of interest from private water companies and private investments. Because corporatisation is a neoliberal reform within the public sector it is supposed to be less controversial than privatisation \u2013 and is employed to avoid resistance. The shift towards corporatisation is therefore a tactical move for the World Bank and the neoliberal policy to regain support, legitimacy and consent. The report also increases the understanding of different means used to ensure that the corporatisation policy succeeds. Firstly, The World Bank promotes and propagandises corporatisation to influence the authorities in developing countries. Secondly, corporatisation carries with it a \u00abdeepened\u00bb form of neo-liberalisation, with a more proactive use of state power \u2013 to fight the resistance by the poor against paying for water services. This refers especially to the active use of pre-paid meters (see picture) and water disconnections. Furthermore, the commercial management have led to high water prices with negative social impacts for the urban underclass.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In need of a counter-strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This report argues that the strategy of the water justice movement against neoliberal water services has largely focused and concentrated its efforts on privatisation \u2013 and therefore has to direct more attention towards resisting corporatisation. This is neces- sary for the counter-strategy to be sufficiently up-to-date, relevant and precise. The neoliberal project should not be allowed to succeed in its attempt to counter or circumvent resistance.<\/p>\n<p>Download the full\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fivas.org\/fivas\/media\/Report%20-%20From%20privatisation%20to%20corporatisation.pdf\" >report<\/a><\/span>\u00a0[pdf]\u00a0and\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fivas.org\/fivas\/media\/Info%20sheet%20-%20corporatisation.pdf\" >summary<\/a><\/span> [pdf]<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fivas.org\/sider\/tekst.asp?side=460\" >Go to Original \u2013 fivas.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The report explores the development from privatisation to corporatisation, within neoliberal policy on urban water services in developing countries. It calls for the water justice movement to update and adjust its strategy, in order to counter the neoliberal tactical shift towards corporatisation. Corporatisation reform entails the implementation of commercial neoliberal management principles within public sector water utilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}