Social Policies and Private Sector Participation in Water Supply

摘要

According to the 1992 Dublin Statement on Water and Development, water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustaining life, development and the environment; and according to the same Statement water has an economic value and should be recognised as an economic good. The difficulty of reconciling the ecological function and social use of water with its economic use makes governing water a major challenge. The efforts of the World Bank and others to privatise water management worldwide seemingly left the state with the task of merely regulating private water services. Between 1990 and 2005 some 55 countries have introduced some form of private sector participation (PSP) in the water supply (p. 13).