Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

sector rather than a non-governmental organization, purchases public water resources as well as the right to deliver them to households. is option, not sur- prisingly, is also the most controversial of the four that were examined in light of Waste Concern and Saiban's partnership in the sanitation and waste management sector, though this model has been discussed for some time within the water resource management sector as well. Whereas with municipal ownership and private management, the questions of ownership and benefit from water resources and conflict between the public sector and commercial logics (Pache and Chowdhury 2012) come into question as outlined above with the sanitation case, with private sector ownership of water resources, no such ambiguity exists. With this setup, the risks, responsibilities, and benefits of owning and operating the water system rest entirely with the pri- vate sector entity (Wolff and Palaniappan 2004). One of the primary drivers for a private own- ership/private management model for water resource management is the potential financial benefit (Feigen- baum and Teeples 1986). is broad concern was pres- ent in the sanitation sector as well with Waste Con- cern, where cost-efficient composting was difficult to achieve without a system of carbon credits to offset costs (Waste Concern 2011). A United Nations official visiting Dhaka to learn more about Waste Concern's work on bringing the private sector into composting and the sanitation sector noted some of the challeng- es and opportunities of developing a carbon financing mechanism with the private sector: Smaller towns, now once that's done and once we've learnt all the tricks on how to upscale it [Waste Concern's model], and how to get carbon finance for upscaling, then in the second phase, they, municipal- ities, have to do two things: one is to learn the science of compost and get very familiar with it, and two find the market for com- posting. So learn the process, do it scien- tifically, all those things and then once you are there, then you upscale, and then we will invest and bring in CDM [Carbon Devel- opment Mechanism] finance. In this Phase II, the upscaling will be done through what we calling the solid waste revolving equity funds and basically we will have to work out what the mechanism would be, but it will provide one package: technology, capacity building, management, and operations and finance. And it will work out a modality by which our investment will recoup at a prof- it by the sale of ERCs [Emission Reduction Credits]. So basically that's how we plan to do it. Relatedly, in an era of declining municipal bud- gets worldwide, in both developed and emerging econ- omies, private sector provisioning is increasingly seen as a means for municipalities to provide water resourc- es to their citizens while reducing their own expendi- tures or even increasing revenue uptake depending on the kind of agreement structured between the munic- ipality and private sector operator (Kurland and Zell 2010; Wolff and Palaniappan 2004). Indeed, if ques- tions of regulation and national and local standards with respect to water safety and quality are met by the private sector entity, end users may end up paying no more than or even less for their water as compared to other provisioning models (Matous 2013; Clarke et al. 2009). Oen, however, this is not the case. A wide range of observers has pointed to not only potential cost increases with private water provisioning, but also a risk of reduced responsiveness of end user needs if inadequate staff are available to deal with technical is- sues associated with water provisioning (Bakker 2000; Osumanu 2008). Another potential area of benefit from the private sector which has had mixed benefits is the financing of water resource projects, which are oen highly capital intensive and subject not only decisions made by provincial and national authorities, but also to the potential for corruption and malfeasance during the contracting process. Here, a private sector actor which is putting up its own resources to construct or update a water system may be given an exclusive right to operate that system, either indefinitely or for a spec- ified period of time (Bliss and Bowe 2011). One other finding from the Waste Con- cern-Saiban partnership with respect to private sector ownership and provisioning of waste management ser- vices has particular resonance with the water systems arena. is concerns the development of small-scale solutions in areas with limited possibility of connec- tion to larger municipal systems, including slum areas and relatively isolated rural areas and villages. Beyond the public-private partnership mechanisms discussed in the prior section, a number of private-sector or so- cial-enterprise-based models may be envisaged in these areas, much as Waste Concern has developed waste management models for small towns and villages. For instance, Balibago Waterworks System, Inc. (BWSI) 24

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