Water privatisation is good...euh..bad...euh...good

"At Water Week in Washington in May, Bank vice president Kathy Sierra asserted that privatisation was not "the only answer"-- there was the full spectrum of public-private mix of investments instead. Only a few days earlier, a senior World Bank official, Shekhar Shah, reported in New Delhi how the Bank had "learned the hard way" that it was not correct to leave it to the private sector.

Currently the IFC's focus is on creating the right conditions for private investors, including a $100 million fund, called IFC Infraventures, to "provide risk capital for early stage development of infrastructure projects in the poorest countries, but also to encourage more public-private partnerships." Thunell also claimed: "The debate is shifting. Instead of 'should the private sector be involved in water?' the question is 'how can we work together for sensible and fair solutions?'"

A fair solution has still not been reached in Tanzania, where the Bank-supported privatisation of water services resulted in sharply higher water prices, little improvement in supply and the eventual termination of the contract with UK-based multinational Biwater in 2005."