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About the Authors...  |
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Chapters have been contributed from eleven leading
experts in China, Chile, India, Ghana, UK and the USA. They use both theory and
practical examples to discuss trends in water use and management around the
world. Their contributions demonstrate why the market process creates superior
outcomes in all kinds of water-related issues, such as urban water and
sanitation, and irrigation in agriculture.
Contributors include Professor Douglas Southgate
(Ohio State University), Professor Eugenio Figueroa (University of Chile),
Professor Andrew Morriss (Case School of Law, Ohio), Professor Wang Xinbo
(Capital University of Economy and Business, Beijing), emeritus professor Colin
Robinson (University of Surrey, UK), policy analyst Dr. Indur M. Goklany (USA),
Ambrish Mehta (Arch-Vahini, India), Laveesh Bhandari and Aarti Khare (Indicus
Analytics, India), Franklin Cudjoe (Imani, Ghana), and Kendra Okonski (editor;
Environment Programme Director, IPN, London). Forewords by Sir Ian Byatt
(former regulator, OFWAT, UK) and Hernando de Soto (author of The Mystery of
Capital).
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The Water Revolution
Practical Solutions to Water Scarcity
Edited by Kendra
Okonski,
Environment Programme Director
International Policy Network,
London UK
ISBN 1-9-5041-13-6;
Price £12 / USD 15 Published March 2006 by International Policy Press,
London
Ordering information:
http://www.policynetwork.net/main/press_release.php?pr_id=88
Abstract
How can clean, affordable water be
made available to everyone? In this very readable book, a group of highly
regarded experts provide a remarkable answer: through markets and market
institutions. Contributors show that:
- Where water ownership and management has been
decentralised, markets have generally enabled widespread access to water at all
levels of society.
- Many of the world's poorest people use markets
(even when they are 'illegal') to deliver clean, safe, reliable water supplies.
- Allowing the private sector to deliver water does
not necessarily result in high prices that harm the poor and the environment.
- Markets create incentives for technological
innovation, which results in less costly, less wasteful production and use of
water.
- In contrast to government control of water, market
processes deliver superior results in terms of conserving water for
environmental amenities.
- Private provision of water does not inevitably
result in 'monopolies' - and just because water is a vital commodity does not
mean it should be considered a common good.
- In many countries, governments perpetuate
artificial water scarcity by preventing private sector involvement in water
delivery.
- In countries dominated by opposition to private
provision of water, public sector water infrastructure is typically decrepit
and failing, while government subsidies and excessive regulation have created
perverse incentives; as a result, access to water, and water quality in these
countries are dire;
- Sadly, many poorly thought-through attempts at
water 'privatisation' have delivered reforms that have hindered rather than
harnessed market processes.
- Markets and market institutions can and will
provide the key to solving water scarcity in the 21st Century - but they must
be allowed to flourish unhindered by excessive bureaucratic intervention.
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