Private versus Public in Water Provision:

The euphoria of the late 1990s that the private sector will resolve much of the management needs and investment requirements for water supply and sanitation of the developing world is now mostly over. The multinational companies that were actively soliciting the management concessions for water supply and sanitation services for the major urban centres, during the second half of the 1990s, have now lost their enthusiasm. On the basis of current and foreseeable trends, it is highly unlikely that even under the most optimistic scenario, more than 15 percent of the people of the developing world are likely to receive their water-related services from the private sector by 2020. Hence, for the developing world as a whole, the most important question that has to be answered is how to make the public sector increasingly more efficient so that they can provide the necessary services to a continually expanding urban population, cost-effectively and equitably. It is essential that the poor receive better and more reliable access to clean water and sanitation than they are receiving at present, and at prices they can afford. The public sector must meet this challenge, since, at least for the next two decades, they will continue to be the main provider of these services.