The Legacy of Neoprivatist Water Politics

This chapter looks at the lasting impacts of the neoprivatist reforms accelerated since the 1990s. It highlights that these reforms were highly successful in creating a global institutional and political-ideological culture dismissive of the public provision of essential services and of the need for strict regulation of private providers. It discusses the obstacles and contradictions that characterized the processes that eventually led to the recognition of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation by the UN General Assembly in 2010, in a context heavily influenced by the systemic conditions consolidated by these reforms, which continue to influence the design and implementation of water policies worldwide well into the twenty-first century. The chapter argues that the impacts of this legacy keep exacting very high costs on human populations through worsening water-related structural social inequalities and injustices and contributing to de-democratization and depoliticizing processes worldwide. The chapter provides a synthetic revision of selected experiences, bringing together research results, reflections from researchers, representatives of the international financial institutions that led the implementation of these policies, and from international academics and social actors involved in the process, including many who directly experienced the negative impacts of these politics.