Public private partnership and the poor : experiences with water provision in four low-income barrios in Buenos Aires

This report is concerned with the provision of water and sanitation to low-income areas within the Buenos Aires concession, one of the first of the recent wave of 'public private partnerships', and still one of the largest. It is based on case studies of four barrios where local governments, the private utility (Aguas Argentinas) and civil society organisations collaborated to improve the provision of water and sanitation. The case studies indicate that in a context of weak civic institutions, privatisation of public services represents a new window of opportunity for party politics and clientelism.

Multi-sector collaboration was viewed by most of the residents as the only means through which they could have gained access to water and sanitation services, given their lack of land titles and the infrastructure charges normally imposed by the utility.
The collaboration took a similar form in each of the barrios, with:
- residents providing labour and some financial contributions
- local government sanctioning the project (despite unresolved land issues) and in several cases providing materials and more active support
- civil society groups first negotiating for the project and then acting as a mediator between the residents and the other parties, as well as organising the residents' contributions. In two barrios the lead civil society organisation was a community based organisation (CBO), while in the other two it was an NGO. Where the CBOs took a lead role, the projects were strongly influenced by the character and style of the local leaders, and also became closely linked to local politics and electioneering. Where the NGO was involved, the projects were less locally driven, but also less influenced by political clientelism.The results suggests that there is scope for NGOs to play a key role in keeping collaborative action accountable, as well as motivating and helping in the social organisation of communities.
- Aguas Argentinas connecting the local networks to their systems and taking various degrees of responsibility for the construction of the local networks.

General lessons drawn:
- Piped water and sanitation provision can contribute to (rather than await) housing security
- Privatisation does not, in itself, depoliticise water and sanitation provision
- Civil society organisations can help to make 'public-private partnerships' work for the poor
- Pro- poor negotiations are important after as well as before the concession agreement has been signed
- Providing water and sanitation connections is not sufficient to ensure a sustainable supply of water to low-income residents

Evident limitations to the approaches taken in all four barrios: while the water and most of the sanitation systems are in place and functioning, the procedures for maintenance, billing and collecting payments have not been adequately developed.