By: Mary Ann Manahan, Buenaventura Dargantes, and Cheryl Batistel*

The Asian people’s access to supplied water has improved dramatically since the 1990’s, with an 84 percent increase in access being noted in from 1990 to 2006, exceeding even the MDG targets. But this water supply cannot be guaranteed safe even as big business interests in crisis-ridden Europe are now posing a threat to Asia’s access to publicly supplied water.

Aside from the Millennium Development Goals, there have been a number of regional initiatives put in place to ensure water security in Asian countries. One is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Strategic Plan of Action on the Environment (1994-1998) which mandates its member states to respond to specific recommendations of the United Nations’ Agenda 21. Specifically, ASEAN member states should ensure that “adequate supplies of water of good quality are maintained for the entire population while preserving the hydrological, biological and chemical functions of ecosystems, adapting human activities within the capacity limits of nature and combating vectors of water-related diseases.” The plan further recognizes that “innovative technologies, including the improvement of indigenous technologies, are needed to fully utilize limited water resources and to safeguard those resources against pollution.”  (United Nations, 1993, Section 2, Chapter 18) Another initiative in South Asia has been the adoption of the recommendations of the Human Development Report of 2006 which emphasizes making water a human right, especially through “enabling legislation to secure, accessible, and affordable supply of water.” (UNEP and DA, 2008, 79) All these obligations however are requiring political and economic will in order to be fulfilled. 

Although MDG Target 10 calls for the reduction of the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe water supply, the report Asia Water Watch Report 2015 (2006) notes that safe water supply has been extremely difficult to assure.  In view of this, the phrase “improved water supply”[2] has been proposed as a substitute to be “the best measurable standard” to indicate that “water is more accessible, and some measures have been taken to protect the water sources from contamination.” (See Table 1 in Annex).

Based on this indicator, Asia Water Watch Report 2015, which was a joint assessment of the region’s prospects of reaching Target 10 and published by the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Fund, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, reported that from 1990 to 2002, water supply coverage in the region improved from 82 percent to 84 percent, but the increase was not uniform across the continent. East and South Asia reported increases of five and six percentage points, respectively, but coverage has declined in Southeast Asia mainly due to the deterioration of existing facilities and service delivery systems, coupled with rapid population growth.  Although an additional 100 million persons have been provided with improved water supply between 1990 and 2002, such boost in coverage is still less than the population growth of Southeast Asia during that period (See Table 2 in Annex).

By 2006, Asia as a whole has surpassed the 2015 MDG target number of people who should have access to improved drinking water source (IDWS), 87 percent of Asia’s population over the target 86 percent.  This level of access reflects a tremendous improvement over that of 2004, during which Asia was reporting only 78 percent of its population as having access to IDWS.  The 2004 level was even a regression over the 1990 level of 80 percent (See Table 3).

Among the sub-regions, South Asia has shown the most dramatic improvements in the size of population with access to improved drinking water source, from 69 percent of total in 1990 to 87 percent in 2006.  On a per country basis in the sub-region, Afghanistan has even reported an 875 percent increase in access to improved drinking water sources from 1990 to 2004.  Such tremendous progress in access to IDWS has contributed to the high achievement rate in the South Asian sub-region. Central Asia, on the other hand, has reported a 20 percentage point decrease in access to IDWS from 1990 to 2004 during which the rate was 66 percent. Countries in said sub-region were not even covered by the MDG report of 2008, making a further assessment of their performance quite difficult. 

Water service providers: public versus private
Agenda 21 has also recommended that states “support water-users groups to optimize local water resources management” and develop and strengthen “cooperation at all levels…including the decentralization of government services to local authorities, private enterprises and communities.” (United Nations, 1993, Section 2, Chapter 18)  With many Asian states unable to provide centralized government services, these recommendations have allowed communities and village-level associations, as well as local governments, to be water service providers to their respective constituencies, thereby evolving a variety of management models for water service delivery.

In an effort to map the degree of public versus private sector service delivery in Asia, the researcher-writers conducted a survey of 646 listed water utilities, of which 171 (or 24 percent) provided information on the number of service connections and the number of people serviced.  This is a large and broad characteristic sample but it should be noted that it is not statistically representative due to data collection limitations, foremost of which was language.  Those included in the list from Central and South Asia were large, centralized utilities.  In Central Asia, an average water utility would have 103,000 service connections covering more than 1.2 million people.  In South Asia, a utility would have an average of 320,000 service connections serving 3.7 million individuals.  Those in East Asia have a little less than one million service connections serving an average of five million people. The water utilities in the list in Southeast Asia also included smaller water districts in the Philippines.  They have an average of 62,000 service connections providing water to 240,000 people (See Table 4).

Most of the utilities listed are public in nature—either as state-sponsored agencies or as municipal corporations.  Although the research found only several private water corporations in the Philippines (Manila Water Company, Inc. (MWCI) and Maynilad Water Services, Inc. (MWSI), and in Indonesia (PT Pam Lyonnaise Jaya and PT Thames Pam Jaya), online information indicated that some private corporations have worked for the development of sources of water supply, and for the acquisition of rights or entitlements to the water they were able to produce from their projects.  Endowed with legal entitlements for the abstraction of water, these corporations then enter into bulk water supply arrangements with the public-sector or non-profit utilities.

Liberalization in Services and Investment: Enter the EU and its TNCs

Despite the leaps, Asia still has the highest number of people un-served by either water supply or sanitation, according to the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme Report. About 715 million people in Asia have no access to safe drinking water, while 1.9 billion or close to 50 percent of its population has no access to sanitation services/facilities. With water fast becoming a critical resource,[3] the problem is largely one of ‘governance’, i.e. equitably sharing the world’s freshwater while ensuring the sustainability of natural ecosystems. This balance clearly has yet to be achieved in the region.

The increasing scarcity of water has renewed debates on how to best manage this critical resource and effectively ensure “water-for-all”, including guaranteeing all life forms and ecosystems. This global water crisis, unfortunately, has become a staging point for international financial institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, and neoliberal governments in the North and the global South to promote and push for privatization and commoditization of water as the “best model” that will solve the region’s water crisis. As S.A. Naqvi, president of the Water Workers Alliance and Co-convener of the Citizens Front for Water Democracy in New Delhi, India, has pointed out, “According to World Bank philosophy, religious places, helpless poor, birds and animals—all are consumers;” therefore, the market should be allowed as “the most efficient allocator of scarce resources” to be the arbiter of all values.

Despite the general recognition that privatization has failed to deliver on its promise of adequate and effective water services provision[4], according to McDonald and Ruiters (2011), “a ‘rethink’ of privatization efforts and renewed explorations continue to seek solutions that provide stronger support to the private sector and/or deepen the commercialization of the public sector (i.e. running public services like a private business), especially by the World Bank”.  This is not surprising since water is deemed as the “new oil” and therefore, investment in this ‘blue or liquid gold’ is a no-brainer. Water, for the privateers and global capital, is the “perfect commodity”: inflation proof; can be sold anytime; everyone needs it; and demand will continue to grow, especially with populous countries and emerging markets like China and India experiencing severe water crisis.

Enter the EU transnational water corporations
About five percent of the world’s population gets their water and sanitation services from private companies. The presence of European transnational water corporations, also called water barons, is definitely felt in the Asian region. Suez, Veolia, Thames Water, SAUR, United Utilities, and Biwater/Cascal have had various contracts[5] in different countries in Southeast, East and South Asia, either through built-operate-transfer schemes (BOT) or concession contracts, and mostly through joint ventures with local private companies.

Suez was able to earn 13.89 billion euros from its water sales in 2010, four percent of which were from its operations in Asia. Suez supplies 91 million people and 61million people for its wastewater treatment services. Veolia, on the other hand, earned 13.44 billion euros for water sales in 2010.  It has furthermore set aggressive targets in privatizing water and outsourcing management of water and sanitation services including technology and construction of water facilities. According to Public Services International Research Unit’s report (2004), “Suez and Veolia continue to treat China as a special case where they wish to invest even in relatively risky projects”. Thames Water, the largest UK water company, on the other hand, has left China. But the European multinationals still remain interested in investing in the Japanese and South Korean markets. (PSIRU, 2004, 4) These European companies have been involved mostly in urban water privatization scheme, mainly in mega cities with high-income residents.

The dominance of the French might have something to do with their solid and protected position in the French home market, where they control 85 percent of the private water markets.[6] But the strength in their turf has already been challenged. When Paris’ water services were returned to municipalities in January 2010, it broke the commercial dominance of the French multinationals in the water sector. By establishing the single public operator, Eau de Paris, they were able to restructure, institute important reforms and reclaim public interest.  According to Anne Le Strat, the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of water, some initial advantages have already observed. One is indicated by the big profits, an estimated 35 million euros that the reform has produced and reinvested in water services; another is the lowered cost of water per cubic meter (at one euro compared to the 260 percent increase with the private company in control); and finally new services are underway.

In Indonesia, civil society, unions and Jakarta’s citizens are calling for the termination of the city’s contract with Suez. Twelve years after the privatization of water in Jakarta, Suez has failed to deliver adequate water supply through piped connections in the city. The residents have resorted to over-extraction of groundwater which created new environmental problems. A recent report of the Supreme Audit Board of Indonesia (BPK) has concluded that the private contract is non-transparent, unfair, and void. Jakarta is the last big city in the global South where Suez still has a concession contract. The termination of this contract, therefore, would have a big political impact not only in Jakarta but all over the world. Apart from this, numerous contracts between European multinationals and Asian governments have failed and eventually terminated. For example, Suez terminated its BOT water supply operations in Thu Duc, Vietnam in 2003 due to dispute over contract terms. United Utilities left Malaysia’s Indah Water when the company was nationalized in 1997. And in 2011, Thames and Veolia sold its BOT water supply to Xian municipality in China. (Hall, et. al, 2004)

In China, European transnational water companies have been losing popularity.  This has been partly due to the infusion of capital investment in China’s water supply infrastructure by its municipalities and the rise of domestic water giants, which are state-owned shareholding companies or former state-owned enterprises (SOE). (Lam, 2011) One notable example is the Beijing Capital Company Limited, a publicly listed SOE which has 27 water projects across China. It rose to number one position in 2009 (from third place in 2006) in the Top 10 Most Influential Water Companies survey of China Water Net, an authoritative information provider and serial events-organizer in China’s water sector. Sino French Water, a joint venture between Suez and Hong Kong’s NWS Holdings Limited, and Veolia ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. The other reason for the European transnational groups’ loss of foothold in China is their high premium offered in acquired contracts which can translate to skyrocketing water rates. This has raised concerns over the transnationals’ possible monopoly and gambling with China’s water industry, which eventually led to the central and local government’s policy of no-high premium acquisition by TNCs after 2008.

Closer ties, more market access
While the tides of privatization and European control in Asia’s water sector are changing, another mechanism for liberalization of the sector is in the works. Regional and bilateral free trade and investment agreements are the latest tool to liberalize services, which means more market access and corporate control through foreign direct investments. Currently, the European Commission via the Lisbon Treaty is designing and negotiating comprehensive investment protection and liberalization measures with third countries. (Olivet, 2010) In Southeast Asia, the EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is a comprehensive agreement between the European Union and the 10-member country of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that seeks to liberalize trade in goods, services, and investments (including portfolio investments). The FTA is a region-to-region negotiation that was launched in 2007 and expected to conclude in two to three years time. However, the negotiation process has been slow, thus prompting the EU to explore bilateral agreements, such as the one it recently inked with Singapore.

The FTA is controversial, ambitious and far-reaching in coverage. With the World Trade Organization/multilateral talks suspended, the EU now seeks to obtain WTO plus commitments and negotiate better market access for its investors through non-discriminatory rules in the form of most favored nation (MFN) commitments. The EU claims, based on its commissioned study in 2006, that the FTA would have a “wide range of anticipated positive effects to both parties,” boost growth in ASEAN and increase ASEAN’s presence in the EU and enhance inter-regional foreign direct investment flows in both directions. (Minambres, 2009) But the Global Analysis Report commissioned by the EU Commission Director General on Trade has admitted that liberalization of services would benefit the EU more than its counterpart.

The ASEAN on the other hand has approached regional integration through the pursuit of free trade agreements and investment treaties. (Purugganan, undated) Apart from the EU, ASEAN has embarked on negotiations with China, Japan, India, the US, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea.  According to Jenina Joy Chavez, senior associate at Focus on the Global South and who has studied issues relating to ASEAN, “as of November 2010, aside from the WTO, ASEAN Members are also involved in a total of 164 free trade agreements or economic partnership agreements, with more than half already in effect or under implementation.”  As of May 2010, ASEAN countries have inked a total of 352 bilateral investment agreements, 26 of these between ASEAN countries themselves. According to Chavez, these agreements entail the “increasing blurring of boundaries between and among foreign and domestic corporations and the importance of international norms and instruments viz. national regulations.”

Clearly, such a liberalized environment will not only facilitate the commercial presence of European investors and privatization of essential services such as water but solidify their interests in Asian economies. It will further embolden corporate lobby groups such as AquaFed or the International Federation of Private Water Operators, the “voice of the private industry vis-a-vis international organizations,” to promote private sector participation in water and wastewater management in developing countries. Already, AquaFed is flexing its corporate muscle to influence the European Union’s decision making, an additional lobbying vehicle of the transnational corporations. (Hall and Hoedeman, 2006)

A particularly controversial provision in the EU-ASEAN FTA is the investor-state dispute resolution, which gives foreign investors the right to take a government to court—either in the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Dispute, international arbitration panel in Paris or the United Nation’s UNCITRAL.  From practice, this has caused governments monies and damages. Under the new EU investment regime, developing countries’ capacities and flexibility to maintain policy space and options that allow them to defend their people and public interest will also be eroded, while it remains questionable whether FTAs and investment agreements will boost growth in ASEAN, especially because the region is characterized by asymmetries—Singapore has the highest per capita income of US$48,893 PPP, which is 31 times than that of Myanmar’s US$1,596. (Chavez, 2011). Without taking into consideration these wide disparities, a blanket agreement will exacerbate already existing inequalities. 

The Search for Alternatives
Asia has been the target of foreign capital and restructuring for many decades, more so now with emerging political, economic and military powers and markets such as China and India. (Chavez, 2011)  But Asia’s diverse and complex context makes it interesting in terms of how alternative ideas are given spaces, even as private capital and corporations dominate much of the peoples’ lives in the region.

Public and community responses and alternatives to the commercialization and privatization of water abound, especially in access to and sustainability of drinking water supply or water service provision in both rural and urban areas. These alternative models of water service provision are very wide ranging, as they depend on the condition and specificities of a particular area or country. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ alternative that has emerged. But the common characteristic is their being a response to the need for people-centered, ecologically sustainable and progressive public water management and on-the-ground solutions, particularly to the problem of water access and universal coverage of the poor and marginalized.

 

There have been several emerging models. In the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Cambodia and Japan, there are sustainable, efficient and effective public and community water delivery systems. Public utilities in Osaka, Japan, for example, have achieved universal coverage for its population, resulting in the delivery of high quality drinking water, very low leakage levels and good labor conditions for the unions.[7] Another public utility, the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority in Cambodia, undertook a massive rehabilitation of a decrepit water distribution system after the Khmer Rouge reign and has strengthened its management capacity to minimize unregistered or unmetered service connection in slum areas and among informal settlers. In India, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a trade union and community-based movement of poor and self-employed women workers in the State of Gujarat, established, and now continues to operate and maintain, a system that provides safe potable water to its members, minimizing time spent for fetching water and giving the women more time for livelihood activities. SEWA provided the communities in Gujarat with safe potable water by digging water canals, laying down pipelines, and chlorinating the water supply. By undertaking chlorination, water quality improved tremendously in comparison to the water that used to be collected from the earthen reservoirs. They also formed a village committee to address the acute water shortage and the absence of livelihood options. Members meet regularly to decide water management issues and supervise the work that had to be done. Through their direct management of the water system, SEWA not only ensured operational sustainability and improved availability of water, distribution and allocation, but also put in place a mechanism enhancing financial viability. Improvement in the quality of service has given women more time to devote to their livelihood.

There are also state-led democratization experiments. In India where large parts of the population remain without access to water and sanitation, concrete and workable alternatives to privatization exist. For example, in the state of Tamil Nadu, engineers of the Water and Drainage Board (TWAD) have undergone a democratization experiment and change management process.[8] They supplied water to 60 million people of Tamil Nadu and provided irrigation water to the farms of more than one million families, while undertaking attitudinal change, shifts in perspective and transformation of the institutional culture of water engineers using a process-oriented participatory training methodology based on the traditional practice of Koodam, a Tamil word for gathering and social space, and for consensus that implies harmony, diversity, equality and justice. The transformation of the institutional culture of water engineers, and the changes in perspectives and relations between local communities and the water utility, facilitated the implementation of the joint management of water resources. The change in perspective gained during the workshops helped transform the engineers into becoming ‘managers of the commons’.  

A partnership was also forged between local communities and the water utility for the joint management of water services based on equity, resource management, reduction of water consumption, improvement of reliability, and reduction in operating and maintenance costs.  Detailed discussions of costs and tariffs enhanced the awareness of consumers regarding the need for water conservation and different rationales for setting water fees. Diligent maintenance of records on pumping hours, water supply hours, electricity meter readings and linking these aspects to the water supply costs served to spread awareness regarding water tariffs. Women in the communities and those marginalized took a pro-active role in taking care of their water sources, ensuring safe and quality drinking water for all members of the community. The communities instituted their own oversight and monitoring system to check the water quality of their water sources. These have been strong positive tools for improving public water service delivery and instituting community empowerment.

Then there are public-public and public-community partnerships, or not-for-profit partnerships between public water operators, communities, trade unions and other social-economic groups. In Thailand, the competing demand for water by households, agriculture, tourism and industry has led the different interest groups in the Ping River, one of the two main tributaries of the Chao Phraya River, to negotiate and balance such competing demands. Local NGOs, residents of communities located upstream and downstream of the river, Hang Dong farmers and Hmong Hill Tribe eventually came up with an acceptable system of water allocation. Public-public partnerships (PuPs) in particular aim to “to link up public water operators on a non-profit basis to strengthen management and technical capacity.” They offer an innovative and practical way of sharing the expertise of public water managers, between South-South or North-South to spread good practice, disseminate good ideas, and drive up performance; in the process, providing the socio-political support needed for such forms of mutual cooperation. (RPW, 2010) It is clearly an alternative to public-private partnerships (PPPs) and has the potential to create a multiplier effect and is an idea whose time has come.

In Asia, there are a number of PuPs—between Southern utilities within a country or between countries, and between Northern and Southern utilities, either in the form of solidarity partnerships, democratization and labor-management cooperation in water and sanitation. Japan has a long history of solidarity partnerships, which were used extensively to develop its own sewerage systems in the 1960s. (PSIRU, TNI and PSI, 2009, 5) Since the 1980s, Japan’s municipalities have conducted training courses in sanitation for other Asian public utilities, financed mostly by its own aid agency, the Japan International Cooperation Agency. European public companies are engaged in a number of international partnerships with Asian public utilities. For example, Dutch public water operators have extensive partnerships in Indonesia.  The Finnish bilateral development agency, FINNIDA, supported the Hai Phong Water Supply Company in Vietnam through a PuP, including training to improve the latter’s performance from 1990 to 2004. This was followed by institutional and organizational restructuring and performance improvement.

In the Philippines, which was an “early structural adjustment experiment by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank” (Chavez, 2011) and is one of the most aggressive ‘liberalizers’ in Asia, alternatives, in terms of operations, range from village-level systems to those undertaken by a government-owned and controlled corporation and by a national-level association of WSPs.  The alternatives also have had variety in form—from targeting service provision to the poor to providing service to all.  Considering that many of the alternatives have been micro in scope, obtaining the data has involved a certain degree of familiarity with the cases, which has provided the researchers a better contextualization of the alternatives, but also allowed only for limited discussion of the alternatives.

Water service in the Philippines is being delivered by water districts (WDs), which are government-owned and controlled corporations, local government-operated waterworks, privately-owned water service providers (WSPs), and user- and/or community-managed water systems such as cooperatives, village-level water and sanitation associations (BWSAs) and rural water and sanitation associations (RWSAs). Over the decades, the Philippine government has underinvested in water supply and distribution systems, thereby failing to fully provide safe, adequate and affordable potable water to its citizenry.  In 1990, about 87 percent of the population had basic albeit unreliable access to safe potable water.  Data from the Philippine Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), on the other hand, indicated that as of 2007 the various water supply providers in the Philippines were able to serve an estimated nine million people. (Interagency Steering Committee of the Philippine Water Supply Sector Roadmap Project, 2008)  By 2008, level of access further declined to 84 percent (National Statistical Coordination Board, 2010), and threatened the achievement of commitments to the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to attain 87 percent coverage by 2015.  (See Table 5).

The innovative provisioning of water and resource management need to be cultivated, especially amid investment liberalization and continued privatization initiatives. An advocacy for alternatives is necessary. In particular, the following recommendations should be explored:

–     Institutional and policy reforms, which should include legislative reform. With an enabling environment, alternatives to commercialization of water resources and services can thrive. Policy and institutional reforms become even more relevant when combined with on-the-ground problem solving. As exemplified above, pushing for reforms include creating platforms, spaces and processes where various stakeholders, including water activists and water justice movements, can come together to promote and advance alternatives.

–     Another way of advancing advocacy for alternatives is via civil society organizations in donor countries, for instance in the EU. These organizations can enlighten their respective governments, including international aid agencies, of the impacts of funded projects on local communities and populations from the perspective of water consumers. This mechanism can provide excellent opportunities for local utilities and communities to show existing water resources and services management practices that conform to local conditions. A positive example is the EC’s funding for public-public partnerships in African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries—40 million euros from the 2009-2013 EU-ACP Water Facility (EUWF), which amounts to 20 percent of the total budget. This could mark the beginning of a shift in EU development policies for the water sector. This was the result of years of campaigning of European groups such as TNI, EPSU, WDM, CEO and others against the EU’s use of aid money to promote water privatization and demanded support for public-public partnerships (PUPs) instead. Asian utilities and water sector advocates should encourage more study visits among and between water consumers, WSPs, NGO workers and members of academe to strengthen mechanisms for multi-faceted analyses of alternatives. The resulting discourses could serve as a counterbalance to the predominance of neoliberal frameworks without necessarily rejecting them in a knee-jerk fashion, hopefully introducing alternative perspectives into the sector.

–     Put on hold and rethinking existing EU bilateral and regional investment and free trade agreements that intend to pry open Asian markets, especially essential services such as water. Asian countries should be given the flexibility to choose options that are appropriate for their countries. The “Seattle to Brussels Network” in collaboration with campaigns in Asia, such as the “EU-ASEAN FTA Campaign” network, has developed comprehensive proposals on this critical issue.

The alternatives to privatization and commercialization of water reflect the need and desire of water justice movements to recreate societies, to collectively come up with a new paradigm and ‘vision’ of how water should be valued and managed, and to fire up a politicized citizenry as well ordinary people to defend public interest through collective action. This new paradigm should reclaim, defend and re-establish water as commons, making this resource not only an issue of social justice but also of democratization.

 

Annex 1. Tables

 Table 1.           Water Resources Profile of Asia

Subregion	IRWR* as of 2005 (cu km)	ARWR** as of 2005 (cu km)	Water Resources Dependency Ratio*** as of 2005	Per Capita ARWR**** as of 2006 (cu m)	Water Poverty Index***** as of 2002
Central Asia	41	221	44	4121	62
East Asia	682	3441	4	4670	58
South Asia	216	3888	25	7116	55
Southeast Asia	567	7063	24	18,864	58
Asia	377	14,612	25	8693	58

Source of data: World Resources Institute (WRI) in Dargantes, B. B., Manahan, M, and Batistel, C. 2011. (forthcoming) Springs of Hope: Alternatives to Commercialization of Water Resources and Services in Asia, inAlternatives to Privatization Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South, David A. McDonald and Greg Ruiters (eds.), Routledge: Routledge Studies in Development and Society series.

             *IRWR refers to the average annual flow of rivers and recharge of groundwater or aquifers as generated by endogenous precipitation or internal rainfall.

             **ARWR refers to the amount of water that is actually available to a country as indicated by the amount of internal rainfall plus inflows from upstream areas.

            ***Water Resources Dependency Ratio refers to the ratio between the renewable water resources originating from outside of a country and the IRWR, with the amount of water allocated to countries in downstream areas being excluded in the computation.

            ****Per Capita ARWR refers to the theoretical maximum amount of water that is actually available per person using the 2006 population as basis for the computation.

            *****Water Poverty Index refers to the order-of-magnitude estimate based on a country’s position as determined by such indicators as resources, access, capacity, use and environment; as a composite measure, the WPI indicates the impact of water scarcity and water provision on human populations. 

 

Table 2.  Profile of Population Served by Improved Water Supply

Subregion	Total Population served as of 1990 (‘000)	% Coverage of Total Population as of 1990	Total Population served as of 2002 (‘000)	% Coverage of Total Population as of 2002	Projected Total Population Served by 2015 (‘000)	% Coverage of Projected Population by 2015
Central Asia	34,339	91	37,734	91	42,223	91
East Asia	985,171	81	1,193,722	86	1,476,209	87
South Asia	822,188	79	1,242,036	84	1,699,788	90
Southeast Asia	305,927	76	405,098	75	494,228	88
Asia Total	2,147,625	82	2,878,590	84	3,712,448	89

Sources: ADB, UNDP, UNESCAP & WHO (2006, 12-13) in Dargantes, B. B., Manahan, M, and Batistel, C. 2011. (forthcoming) Springs of Hope: Alternatives to Commercialization of Water Resources and Services in Asia, inAlternatives to Privatization Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South, David A. McDonald and Greg Ruiters (eds.), Routledge: Routledge Studies in Development and Society series.

 

 

 

Table 3. Profile of Access to Improved Drinking Water Source in Asia

Subregion	% of 1990 Population with Access to IDWS	% of 2004 Population with Access to IDWS	% of 2006 Population with Access to IDWS	MDG Target 10 to be attained by 2015 (%)
Central Asia	86	66	No Data	No Data
East Asia	83	84	88	84
South Asia	69	80	87	87
Southeast Asia	82	81	86	87
Asia Total	80	78	87	86

Sources: WHO and Unicef, (2004, 24-31); UN (2008, 42) in Dargantes, B. B., Manahan, M, and Batistel, C. 2011. (forthcoming) Springs of Hope: Alternatives to Commercialization of Water Resources and Services in Asia, inAlternatives to Privatization Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South, David A. McDonald and Greg Ruiters (eds.), Routledge: Routledge Studies in Development and Society series.

 

Table 4. Water Utilities in Asia

Subregion	Number of Water Utilities Listed	Number of Utilities with Data	Average Number of Connections	Average Number of People Served
Central Asia	3	3	103,056	1,238,865
East Asia	8	8	961,361	5,052,414
South Asia	13	13	320,590	3,685,044
Southeast Asia	622	147	61,731	243,046
Asia Total	646	171	12,4963	799,881

Source: authors’ surveys in Dargantes, B. B., Manahan, M, and Batistel, C. 2011. (forthcoming) Springs of Hope: Alternatives to Commercialization of Water Resources and Services in Asia, in Alternatives to Privatization Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South, David A. McDonald and Greg Ruiters (eds.), Routledge: Routledge Studies in Development and Society series.

 

 

Table 5. Philippine Water Utilities by Type of Management Model as of 2005

Type of Management Model	Number*	Percent	Number**	Percent
Water District (WDs)	430	26.24	***580	9.24
Local Government-Operated Waterworks	700	42.71	1000	15.92
Privately-Operated Water Service Providers	9	0.55	900	14.33
Water Systems Managed by Users and/or Communities	500	30.51	3800	60.51
Total	1639	100.00	6280	100.00

*Source of Data:  Philippines Small Towns Water Utilities Data Book, 2005

**Source of Data: World Bank, 2005 as cited in the Philippine Water Supply Roadmap, 2008

***Data as of 2003-2004

 

 

Annex 2.  List of Public-Public Partnerships in Asia

 

Home Country	Location	External Partner	External Country	Water/ Sanitation	Year	Finance	Type
Bangladesh	Dhaka	Korea Water (Daejon)	South Korea	Water	2008	ADB	Int’l
		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2005	JICA	Int’l
Bhutan		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2006	JICA	Int’l
Cambodia		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2003	JICA	Int’l
	Siem Reap	Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority	Cambodia				Nat’l
China		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2004	JICA	Int’l
	Beijing	Tokyo Metropolitan Sewerage Bureau	Japan	Sanitation		JBIC	Int’l
	Municipal	Municipal Companies	China	Sanitation			Nat’l
India		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2007	JICA	Int’l
	New Delhi	New Delhi Jal Board	India	Water	2004+		Nat’l
	Maharashtra	Tamil Nadu	India		2008		Nat’l
Indonesia	Bogor region, Java	Duinwaterbedrijif Zuid-Holland	Netherlands	Water	2006	EVD	Int’l
	Deli Serdang, et.al.	Tirtanadi PDAM	Indonesia		1999		Nat’l
	Banten, West Java	Amsterdam Waternet	Netherlands				Int’l
	Kabupaten, Bogor	Duinwaterbedrijif Zuid-Holland	Netherlands	Water	2006		Int’l
	North Sumatra	Duinwaterbedrijif Zuid-Holland	Netherlands		2004		Int’l
	Makassar	Amsterdam Waternet	Netherlands				Int’l
	Medan	Amsterdam Waternet	Netherlands				Int’l
	PDAM Pantianak	Oasen	Netherlands		2003		Int’l
	Pekanbaru	PWN	Netherlands				Int’l
	Tiritinadi	Indah Water Konsortium	Malaysia	Sanitation	2007	USAID	Int’l
		Eau de Paris	France		2005	NGO	Int’l
Iraq		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2007	JICA	Int’l
Japan	Various	Internal Sanitation PuPs	Japan	Sanitation
Laos		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2003	JICA	Int’l
Mongolia		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2006	JICA	Int’l
Myanmar		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2007	JICA	Int’l
Nepal		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2007	JICA	Int’l
Pakistan		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2003	JICA	Int’l
Palestine		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2003	JICA	Int’l
	Jenine, Tulkeram, et.al.	Eau de Paris	France		2008		Int’l
Papua New Guinea		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2005	JICA	Int’l
Philippines		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2004	JICA	Int’l
	Cebu	Visayas State University, AGWWAS, PSIRU-Asia	Philippines	Water/Sanitation	2007	NGO	Nat’l
	Cebu	City West Water, Melbourne	Australia	Water	2008	ADB	Int’l
	Various	LWUA	Philippines			Government	Nat’l
Saudi Arabia		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2005	JICA	Int’l
Singapore	National	Ngee Ann Polytehcnic, PUBEU (Union)	Singapore	Water	2002		Nat’l
	National	SWCC	Saudi Arabia	Water	2005		Int’l
Sri Lanka		REG (Grenoble)	France		2004		Int’l
		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation		JICA	Int’l
Syria		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2004	JICA	Int’l
Thailand		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2005	JICA	Int’l
	Krabi	King County WTB	USA	Sanitation	2007	USAID	Int’l
Vietnam		Osaka, Sapporo, East Hiroshima, Kitakyusyu	Japan	Sanitation	2003	JICA	Int’l
	BIWASE Binh Duong	PPWSA	Cambodia		2008	ADB	Int’l
	Da Nang	Haiphong Water Supply Company	Vietnam		2008	ADB	Nat’l
	Ha Long	Indah Water Konsortium	Malaysia	Sanitation	2007	USAID	Int’l
	Hai Phong		Finland		1990	FINNIDA	Int’l
	Ho Chi Minh City	Bangkok MWA	Thailand	Sanitation		ADB	Int’l
	Hue	Paris SIAAP	France	Sanitation			Int’l
	Hue	Yokahama Waterworks Bureau	Japan	Water	2007	JICA	Int’l
	Hue, Ho Chi Minh City	Yokahama Waterworks Bureau	Japan	Water	2003	JICA	Int’l

Source: David Hall, Emmanuele Lobina, Violeta Corral, Olivier Hoedeman, Philip Terhorst, Martin Pigeon , and Satoko Kishimoto, Public-public partnerships (PUPs) in Water, Transnational Institute, Public Services International, and Public Services International Research Unit, March 2009.

 

 

References

 

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AGWWAS, MCWD, PSIRU and VSU.  2008.  Public-Public Partnership (PUP):  Training on Performance Benchmarking for Philippine Water Districts.  21-24 October 2008, Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) Regional Training Center, Cebu City, Philippines.  http://api.ning.com/files/BChojgJ3nYy8H4mzrZRqOwAHLmedldGzGSfQrj6kO6i1QcNfFt7cVdijCP5a5w2oc863o8HOjQXh4lAgTCQRvAV1t-tK6TNO/bmwdstrainingreport_vpcnov08.pdf.  5 pp.

 

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