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Water Operator Partnerships after 15 years: Re-politicising the debate

By Andrea Beck

Just over 15 years have passed since the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) published a plan that proposed, inter alia, the concept of Water Operator Partnerships (WOPs). In this plan, which was released in March 2006, WOPs were envisioned as “a structured programme of cooperation among water operators, based on mutual support and on a not-for-profit basis.” The idea was to use peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange to develop the capacities of water operators, so that they could deliver reliable, good-quality services on the way to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Continue reading “Water Operator Partnerships after 15 years: Re-politicising the debate”

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For the redistribution of water, framing matters!

By Lize Swartz | EADI/ISS Blog Series

In the face of increasing pressure on global water availability, a degree of inventiveness in finding just and sustainable ways to ensure access to water is required. The redistribution of water is one possible way in which this could be done. But ongoing research on elite responses to a recent water scarcity crisis in South Africa shows that the redistribution of water resources will not go uncontested by water elites and that existing narratives on the sharing of water are not creating the extent of solidarity needed. Continue reading “For the redistribution of water, framing matters!”