Sunday 8 January 2017

A different player in the public/private debate? Looking at bulk water vendors

For this post, I was originally intending to look at both sides of the private-public debate in relation to water supply in African countries. However, after our lecture with Ben Page I now understand that this is by no means a simple debate with a simple answer, and it almost definitely would be hard to reach any definitive conclusion in the space of under one thousand words.

Rather than sticking to my original plan therefore I have decided to look at something that is related to the debate, but can be seen as a ‘different player’. In both my post on inequality as well as the BBC news post on Harare, I mentioned the presence of water vendors. Water vendors are interesting for they are neither ‘public’ water provisions nor are they divestiture/outright sale of state assets (privatisation). Rather, often created by local actors who see profit making potential from inadequate water provisioning, they can be seen as a non-state privatisation form of water provision.

These types of vendors proliferate in many areas in Africa, a reason for why this is important to analyse. For this blog post I am going to focus on the locality mentioned in my previous post: Harare, Zimbabwe. Searching for information on this and I came across a very recent article by Manungu et al., (2016) named ‘Bulk water suppliers in the City of Harare – An endogenous form of privatisation of urban domestic water services in Zimbabwe?’. The document is up to date and gives a clear overview of the situation regarding bulk water vendors in Harare. I will therefore below use their information to give a contextual overview of the situation in Harare. Looking at their conclusions in relation to whether bulk water vendors are a good alternative to water supply, I will offer some of my own opinions.

Harare: failure of private and public strategies

Harare is Zimbabwe’s largest metropolis and capital. Both privatisation and public approaches to water supply from the early 90’s have failed in different ways leading to shortages. Firstly, a failed IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programme starved government funds to improve water supply infrastructure and reform water supply and management. There was also a failure of state-led Government efforts to mobilise international financing alongside Harare City Council’s failure to raise local financing. This was all against a backdrop of rapidly deteriorating economic conditions. The result was a deterioration of Harare’s water supply infrastructure followed by severe water shortages (urban water coverage in Zimbabwe has been declining since the late 1990’s). In 2008 there was a widespread outbreak of cholera (BBC, 2008).

It is in this context that residents have been forced to look for alternative water sources. Some residents have resorted to digging shallow wells, drilling boreholes, putting up storage tanks and, lastly, sourcing water from bulk water vendors.  

The rise of bulk water vendors

Bulk water vendors rose in Harare between 2005 and 2013. These vendors served those in households in the high-income suburbs, which had extremely limited piped water supplies. The prices suppliers charged are a minimum of USD40 and USD75 per 5000 litres depending on the company. Four main companies exist: Highmel Water deliveries, Water.com, Orca Waters and another one with no specific name, just the word ‘water’. The companies were classed as illegal until 2013 when the Zimbabwe National Water Authority rendered them legal so long they paid a quarterly subscription fee to their respective sub-catchment council and submit fortnightly water quality, grounded water level, and abstraction volume reports. According to this article, 60% of 67 respondents rated the water good quality.

Are bulk water vendors the way forward?

Manungu et al., (2016: 77) conclude their paper by stating that:

 ‘bulk water suppliers represented successful mobilisation of local (Zimbabwean) private capital into the urban domestic water sector without any assistance from the state or international resources. The capital that was invested was substantial by Zimbabwean standards. It is also remarkable that the customers were satisfied with the service they obtained, which cannot be said about the service of the City Council. Therefore, we argue that bulk water suppliers can be seen as a viable alternative endogenous form of privatisation of urban domestic water supply as contrasted to multinational companies.’

Whilst I agree that this situation may be better than multinational companies profiting, looking at it from a broader perspective I am not so convinced that water vendors are a better option than other methods. Despite how ‘satisfied’ the customers who received the water were, I can’t not think of the larger proportion of the Harare population who will be much less than satisfied with the water they are left to receive.

As highlighted in the article, these vendors almost exclusively serve those who can afford it, which in this case is those located in the wealthy suburbs of Harare. Whilst this might be a good alternative to them, as my post on inequality showed, for anyone with less money these forms of water can be around 10 times more than municipal water services cost. For some this is simply too much and as a result, less safe options have to be pursued.

If I was to give an opinion on water vendors therefore I would say that, in times of water shortages if this is the only viable option for clean quality water then it could potentially be used as a (very) short term option. Long-term plans for better municipal water supplies are what I believe to be a much better option however.  Jake Stenson (another member of GEOG3038) wrote a great blog post on the public/private debate, where said that he agreed with the following quote, which I also could not agree with more:

‘Just because someone can afford to pay the cost of filling their swimming pool or washing their cars every day, should they have the right to do so when others are struggling to survive with no water at all?’ (Mcdonald, 2002)

If vended water is always more expensive than municipal water, then I cannot agree that it is a viable source of water provision. However, maybe an option of the state and donors subsidising these water providers could be a potential way to reduce the cost of these private vendors and thereby increase poorer persons access to the supply? Ensuring that water vendor monopolies do not form is also crucial as this can rapidly increase prices (Kjellén and McGranahan, 2006).  I also believe that in periods of water shortages such as that in Harare I there should be limits on the volume of clean water that households are able to purchase, ensuring that it is not all used up by richer homes.

Overall I agree with (Kjellén and McGranahan, 2006) that despite ‘experts [lamenting] the “myth” that water is a free good, when people treat it as a normal economic commodity, this too is unacceptable.


BBC (2008) ‘No water’ in cholera-hit Harare, (WWW) BBC (bbc.co.uk; 08/01/17)

 Manzungu, E.; Mudenda-Damba, M.; Madyiwa, S.; Dzingirai, V. and Musoni, S. 2016. Bulk water suppliers in the City of Harare – An endogenous form of privatisation of urban domestic water services in Zimbabwe? Water Alternatives 9(1): 56-80 

McDonald, D. (2002) ‘No money no Service’, Sustaining Livelihoods, 28(2), pp. 16–20.

Kjellén, M and McGranahan, G (2006) Informal Water Vendors and the Urban Poor, Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series, London: International Insitute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Friday 2 December 2016

BBC News article on Zimbabwe

Source: BBC News


This is a short post just to draw attention to this BBC news article that I found last week. You can read the article here:


The reason I draw attention to it is that it covers both themes from my last post on inequality as well as points towards my next planned post on the private/public water provisioning debate.

The article, by Shingai Nyoka is titled 'Zimbabwe water shortages: 'I don't remember taking a shower'. It looks at the current water situation for people in Zimbabwe's capital Harare.

The key issue stated in the article is that the public water provisioner, Zimbabwe National Water Authority, 'lacks funds to treat water and has also been unable to maintain its ageing water pipes'.

More affluent areas of Harare, water tankers are able to provide for homes. However the high costs mean only the richest can access this.

The article states: 'The same volume of water from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority would cost just 10% as much - if it was actually available'.

The article therefore points to problematics associated with both public and private water provisioning as well as the issue of inequality.

The article also points to 'bottom up' private entrepreneurship, with the case study of Anna Malikezi who wakes early to get to the water pumps and then sells it to her community. This brings in another dynamic to the private/public debate and pulls on some ideas expressed by a recent lecture we had from Tatiana which pulled from Business in Development literature.

After reading this I may well use Harare as a main case study in my next post.


Monday 21 November 2016

To what extent is inequality a factor in water access?


Saturday was World Toilet Day, a day marked by the UN to highlight the importance of toilets worldwide.

And it is true, they are of great importance. Toilets, though something often not paid much attention, are the centres of a multitude of social distinctions.


Reading around the matter, one of the main ideas that has become apparent is that of inequality. Despite much easier, more sustainable and cheaper alternatives to the porcelain ‘flush’ toilet that we are all used to in our homes, the latter carries a certain image. With references to colonial legacy, these toilets are possessed by the highest income groups, with fully piped water supply, and have thereby become both a symbol of status, as well as ‘civility’  in many urban centres in Africa. This is furthered by narratives such as that offered in an article by The Economist  linking flushing toilets with progress (echoing modernisation discourses). With flushing toilets thereby seen as the ultimate goal, other attempts at toilet provisioning can be seen as ‘not good enough’ or have cultural stigmas attached to them. Inequality thereby increases inequality by producing a negative cycle.

Even in those areas where toilets have been implemented inequality is an issue, with the privately owned stalls being too much for many too afford. Joel Nkako (Kenyas' Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation (Tatiana Thieme Lecture 2016)), in 2010 made some important points in relation to toilet provisioning:

‘You have to see the coverage and access and usage of facilities like latrines. Sometimes we use a single word, like when we say we want to scale up latrine ‘coverage’. What we mean is we want many people to use toilets and maybe stop open defecation. But when we use the word coverage, it does not ensure usage or access, because if we walk around we’ll find places where toilets are locked. They are used by specific people, and excluding others. And access also does not translate into proper usage.’

The reason I mention all of this is because I feel there exist parallels between inequalities surrounding toilet access to access to water. For the rest of this post I want to make apparent these parallels and demonstrate the importance of inequality in understanding access to water in Africa’s urban centres.


The poor paying more for less?


The way in which I hope to draw some parallels starts with the Joel Nkako quote just mentioned above.

Firstly, the statement: ‘when we use the word coverage, it does not ensure usage or access’. This idea can also be used to explore issues surrounding water access in Africa. It has been made clear that when understanding access to water, National Water Scarcity metrics are unhelpful. Those in the  slums of Nairobi face shortages of clean water, whilst their neighbours in affluent suburbs have enough water not only for household use, but enough to keep swimming pools filled (UNDP, 2006: 80) . Clearly therefore, there is much more to inability to access water than national metrics. Rather, it is the destructing issue of inequality.

A second part of Joel Nkako’s speech can also relate to water issues and help us understand this inequality to a greater level: “[Toilets] are used by specific people… excluding others.” Doing research into water inequalities in African urban centres and I was shocked to find the statement that, in regard to water  ‘the poor pay more – and get less water’. Looking further and I found that it is true: 'People living in the slums of Nairobi... actually pay 5 to 10 times more for water than those in high income areas of [the] same city'. Amartya Sen’s theory of entitlements is able to help us understand this paradox further. Drawing attention ‘to market structures, institutional rules and patterns of service provision’, this theory refers ‘not to rights or moral claims in a normative sense but the ability of people to secure a good or service through a legally recognised and enforceable claim on a provider’ (UNDP, 2006: 80).

‘Entitlements’ help us understand how those with enough income are able to afford piped water supply to be fitted into their homes. It also helps us understand how poorer persons can often only access this piped supply through vendors or water kiosks which - due to economies of scale, and the hiking up of price as the water passes through the marketing chain - ends up costing much more per unit for the poor. This can be up to twice the price of piped supplies (Thompson, 2000). (The same can be said of private communal toilets where often the price per use is too much for parents to justify infants or themselves using). Due to this high cost therefore the poorest have to spread out their access to water, including low quality and long distance sources. Clearly therefore economic inequality has vast impacts on water access for poorer persons.  

The last parallel I wish to briefly make (although I stress this is in no ways a small issue that much time could be dedicated to) is that of gender inequality. Both the act of collecting water and using the toilet are risky acts for women, where they are often vulnerable to attack on route. ‘To avoid this, women and girls avoid drinking, and hold back the urge to go to the toilet for long periods of time, risking dehydration, bladder and kidney infections, and other health impacts’, Léo Heller, UN Special Rapporteur on Human rights to water and sanitation states.

I am not trying to say that access to toilets and access to water are the same issue in any sense. Rather, I have used a comparison here to highlight a core issues that both suffer from: that of inequality. In response to the title’s question, I believe that inequality is a massive component in determining shortage of access to clean water. The human right to water ‘entitles everyone to sufficient, safe acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use’. More needs to be done to reduce inequalities that interfere with this right.


Many of the issues stated here about water access can be related back to private vs. public debates around water servicing. Next week's post will be aiming to untangle that debate. This post can therefore be viewed as a precursor to next weeks, where some of the themes mentioned will be reiterated. I look forward to looking into it.


UNDP (2006) Human Development Report 2006: Beyond Scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisis, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Thompson et al., (2000) Waiting at the tap: changes in urban water use in East Africa over three decades, Environment and Urbanisation, 12, 2, 37-52.


Monday 14 November 2016

The Politics of Integrated Water Resources Management


Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), it can be said, is one of the foremost paradigms in water resource management in Africa currently. It has been promoted by multilateral and bilateral donors, and is the flagship project of international bodies such as the Global Water Partnership (Mehta, 2015). Importantly, IWRM has been incorporated into many water policies and strategies in the nations of Africa.

IWRM has exploded on the water scene in Africa, and I want to understand more about it. I want to understand the politics of it’s success - how has it become so popular? Is it really that great? What have been the results?


But, before all this… what exactly is IWRM?

The most commonly referred to definition for Integrated Water Resources Management is that provided by the Global Water Partnership. It is defined as:

'A process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems'.

With a focus on what is known as the ‘3 E’s’ (Efficiency, Equity, Ecological Integrity) IWRM aims to include the integration of all stakeholders in a basin to produce more a more holistic, participatory and harmonious strategy of water sharing (Van der Zaag, 2005).

Sounds great! In fact so great that it has been taken forward as the most popular method for water management today. It is rare to find a single paradigm become quite so popular, and I think this is therefore important - why has it become so popular?


…What are the politics behind the spread and uptake of this method in Africa?

There has been much speculation – both for and against the strategy – as to why IWRM has become so popular, both globally and in Africa.

It seems there are a plethora of reasons those in support of the method believe it has been so successful. Firstly, after decades of dam construction and resultant criticism of this method, IWRM arrived and spread in the 90’s when global focus was turning to ‘soft’ management strategies (Mehta, 2015). For example, Adams (1985) highlights how the construction of the Baklori Dam in Nigeria caused extensive downstream issues (to fishing, agriculture and the economy). With IWRM encouraging downstream-upstream linkages the method was therefore seen as very favorable to dam critics (Van der Zaag, 2005). Furthermore, previous strategies for water management were increasingly coming under fire for being too sub-sectoral and disconnected, as Biswas (2004:249) clearly states it, water management was seen to have become:

 ‘Multi-dimensional, multi-sectoral, and multi-regional and filled with multi-interests, multi-agendas, and multi-causes, and which can be resolved through a proper multi-institutional and multi-stakeholder coordination.’

This lack of coordination led to more debates in water management strategies, which came to a head in a UNCED conference in Rio in 1992 were the concepts of IWRM were debated (Savenijie and Van der Zaag, 2008).

Those more wary of the approach have scathed its popularity as being a result of it being a  ‘Wishy-Washy’ method that allows people to continue what they are doing, but now with a trendy, up to date label of using the latest paradigm. For example, Biswas (2004) again in his paper is left with many questions after reading the Global Water Partnership definition:


Who is doing the promoting? What is meant by land and ‘related resources’ (does this mean agriculture, energy, or what?)? What specifically is being maximized? And what is precisely meant by equitable?

Indeed, it is quite hard to be sure.

Overall on paper however, I think it can be said that IWRM probably has more positives than negatives, although negatives of course do exist. 

We will now turn to look at the strategy in practice.


How does IWRM play out in real life?

Just as there are binaries in why IWRM has become so popular in Africa, there are even stronger opinions surrounding the success of this strategy in practice.

Nigeria’s Komadugu-YobeRiver Basin has been called a success case of IWRM. Located upstream of Lake Chad, dam construction and irrigation caused falling river levels leading to conflict and impacts on livelihoods. As part of an IWRM approach, governments and civil society agreed to a water charter whereby farmers, fishermen and herders joined in plans to restore the river. The results have reportedly been a restoration of the rivers flow locally, improvement in livelihoods and also less conflict.

However, it seems that criticisms have been far and wide; I don’t know if that because critical voices are often heard louder or if this is a sign that IWRM is, in fact, the wrong strategy. Nevertheless, IWRM in practice has been scathed as…

… Being too abstract. 

As mentioned earlier, the criteria for IWRM can be seen as rather ‘wishy-washy’. For example, in water-rich Uganda, the paradigm of IWRM was used but focus was placed on regulating water and introducing neoliberal reform, rather than on allocating water to those who needed it (Mehta, 2015), something that many would criticise.

… Lacking recognition of local level realities.

Looking at the implementation of IWRM in South Africa Mehta et al., (2014) have highlighted how the policies failed to fully recognize the complexities and inequalities of the context, leading to lack of participation and minimal farmer power.

… Being too difficult. 

It is hard to ever really gain full participation of all actors in a basin. Mehta (2015) demonstrates the case of Mozambique, where elites trained in the Netherlands implemented IWRM in the late 90’s. The colonial legacy of a centralized state however meant efforts at creating truly participatory institutions were stunted.


Where does this leave us?

Overall therefore I think a small attempt at a conclusion can be made. From the research I have done it would seem that, on paper, the popularity and – in many ways – need for IWRM is clear. On paper there are much more positives than negatives that an IWRM approach can offer. The fallback mainly comes in implementation, as seen it appears there are actually more negatives (so far) than positives.

With my still very limited knowledge therefore I can only make a tentative recommendation that the ideas behind IWRM must be taken seriously, as they clearly have some stamina in solving issues around water management. But at the same time I think that not every single person can ever be satisfied in such large basin regions with so many complex and different participants. Future attempts at IWRM therefore might need to be more clear-cut, understanding that it is almost impossible for everyone to be satisfied, but doing the best that can be realistically achieved. I also believe that water infrastructure projects also need to be prioritized and not ignored by IWRM.



Adams, W.M. 1985 The downstream impacts of dam construction: a case study from Nigeria . Trans.I.B.G., 10(3), pp 292-302.

Biswas, A.K., 2004. Integrated Water Resources Management: A Reassessment. Water International 29 (2), 248–256.

Mehta et al., (2014) Learning from Southern Africa on Fair and Effective Integrated Water Resources Management,

Mehta, L (2015) Politics of Integrated Water Resources Management in southern Africa, (WWW) Institute of Development Studies (ids.ac.uk; 12/11/16).

Savenijie, H.G. and Van der Zaag, P. 2008. Integrated water resources management:  concepts and issues. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 33, 290-297.

Van der Zaag, P. 2005. Integrated Water Resources Management: Relevant concept or irrelevant buzzword? A capacity building and research agenda for Southern Africa, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 30, 867-871.