[HGG01-05] Sub-Saharan post-neoliberalism? Paid and free water supply in Machakos County, Kenya
Keywords:domestic water, neoliberalism, rights to water, Kenya
1. Post-neoliberal era?
Since the mid-1980s, structural adjustment policies have privatized, deregulated, and commercialised the use and management of water and other natural resources in developing countries with a neoliberal emphasis on free market principles and cost-recovering. There is debate over whether the neoliberal globalisation will help reduce poverty. Some Latin American countries have entered a post-neoliberal era in which the left-wing government has assured human rights to water through constitutional amendments since the beginning of this century. This has stimulated scholars investigating Sub-Saharan Africa to debate the validity of using the concept of post-neoliberalism and examine policies that are oriented towards the rights to water, and social movements that try to promote them.
2. The rights to water and resistance to neoliberalism
With the rights-based approach (RBA) in social development practices since the mid-1990s, there has been an increasing assertion on the human rights to water. One of these is the resistance movement in some countries to commercialisation of the water provision. The IMF and the World Bank have privatised and commercialised water provision in response to the “failure” of the public sector and adhered to cost-recovering policies and economic efficiency, introducing a small number of large multinational companies in the water sector. This has caused a vicious circle of poverty and unhealthiness, which has induced people’s resistance in South Africa and Ghana, for instance. Especially conflicts between globalisation / commercialisation on the one hand and de-globalisation / de-commercialisation on the other, and resultant resistance in Soweto, Johannesburg, are relatively well known.
3. Potential conflicts between paid and free water supply in Kenya
While the behaviour of a few multinational water corporations is well reported, neoliberal water sector reforms have also led to corporatisation of the local governmental water supply in the Sub-Saharan region. Although corporatisation in water provision is now a prevalent phenomenon, its impact on water use and users’ possible resistance has relatively been under-reported and less examined. In Machakos County, Kenya, corporatisation is an element of the water sector reform, and both water corporations and NGOs provide paid water. Alongside with this is the emphasis on the rights to water that has been expressed in a free water supply by the decentralised county government in recent years. This move may be comparable to re-municipalisation of water supply in other countries.
4. Post neoliberalism or renewed clientelism?
Should this addition of free water provision in Kenya be viewed as having a post-neoliberal character that seeks to reduce poverty emphasising the rights to water, or simply as a clientelist practice of the local political elites who utilise water as a political resource as before? How do the dualistic notions of neo-liberalism / post-neoliberalism and post-neoliberalism / clientelism affect our understanding of the reality of water use and provision? This study considers these issues by introducing examples from Kenya.
Since the mid-1980s, structural adjustment policies have privatized, deregulated, and commercialised the use and management of water and other natural resources in developing countries with a neoliberal emphasis on free market principles and cost-recovering. There is debate over whether the neoliberal globalisation will help reduce poverty. Some Latin American countries have entered a post-neoliberal era in which the left-wing government has assured human rights to water through constitutional amendments since the beginning of this century. This has stimulated scholars investigating Sub-Saharan Africa to debate the validity of using the concept of post-neoliberalism and examine policies that are oriented towards the rights to water, and social movements that try to promote them.
2. The rights to water and resistance to neoliberalism
With the rights-based approach (RBA) in social development practices since the mid-1990s, there has been an increasing assertion on the human rights to water. One of these is the resistance movement in some countries to commercialisation of the water provision. The IMF and the World Bank have privatised and commercialised water provision in response to the “failure” of the public sector and adhered to cost-recovering policies and economic efficiency, introducing a small number of large multinational companies in the water sector. This has caused a vicious circle of poverty and unhealthiness, which has induced people’s resistance in South Africa and Ghana, for instance. Especially conflicts between globalisation / commercialisation on the one hand and de-globalisation / de-commercialisation on the other, and resultant resistance in Soweto, Johannesburg, are relatively well known.
3. Potential conflicts between paid and free water supply in Kenya
While the behaviour of a few multinational water corporations is well reported, neoliberal water sector reforms have also led to corporatisation of the local governmental water supply in the Sub-Saharan region. Although corporatisation in water provision is now a prevalent phenomenon, its impact on water use and users’ possible resistance has relatively been under-reported and less examined. In Machakos County, Kenya, corporatisation is an element of the water sector reform, and both water corporations and NGOs provide paid water. Alongside with this is the emphasis on the rights to water that has been expressed in a free water supply by the decentralised county government in recent years. This move may be comparable to re-municipalisation of water supply in other countries.
4. Post neoliberalism or renewed clientelism?
Should this addition of free water provision in Kenya be viewed as having a post-neoliberal character that seeks to reduce poverty emphasising the rights to water, or simply as a clientelist practice of the local political elites who utilise water as a political resource as before? How do the dualistic notions of neo-liberalism / post-neoliberalism and post-neoliberalism / clientelism affect our understanding of the reality of water use and provision? This study considers these issues by introducing examples from Kenya.