THE ROAD THAT HAS BEEN TRAVELED

Platform on Public Community Cooperation

July 2010

Background

If the 1990s were characterized by a wave of privatizations involving public firms, the first decade of the 21st century was marked by resistance to privatization and the recovery, in many cases, of those public firms. Regarding water, across the continent social movements and groups committed to the defense of natural resources obtained considerable triumphs, such as the expulsion of multinationals and the inclusion of water as a fundamental right in the legislative framework of several nations; if the first served to set a precedent and encouraged people in the struggle, the second defined a State commitment to protect the resource.

What has been achieved to date is without a doubt a demonstration that progress has been made and with positive results for the population. Even so, the danger persists, both of new privatizations as well as other ways of commercializing water. Therefore, its defence and preservation requires action in two aspects: first of all, an alert and constant struggle to ensure that this natural resource and the entity responsible for its management are public property; and second, the challenge of how to successfully carry out water management, guaranteeing that its quality and quantity will be adequate and sufficient for the entire population.

While in each place, people resolve the issue of access to water, organized in self-managing community groups in some cases or as part of a network of public companies in others, the idea is that everyone has guaranteed access to potable water at a fair and accessible cost. In order to achieve this, the company or association must not be private, as this condition carries with it the implicit objective of making a profit. Given that the aim of public firms is not profit but service, the actors involved in water management must have a model designed for that purpose: a working tool that contemplates water management as a whole, an efficient, effective, transparent and participatory model that involves society as a whole. On the South American continent, we have the experience of firms that provide a service with these characteristics. For example ABSA (Argentina) and OSE (Uruguay), and are willing to collaborate in this process of change being carried out by other public firms and self-managing associations to offer a service that is not just a quality service but is also in solidarity with the population of limited resources. This idea gave rise to the Public Community Agreements, based on cooperation between firms and/or associations to build a water management model that maintains its public or community quality and achieves quality coverage in its area of action. Moreover, this management should include the active and joint participation of everyone involved in the process: authorities, operators, technicians and users.

The Public Community Agreements proposal, therefore, is a response to address the two previously mentioned aspects: (1) an ongoing resistance to privatizations and other ways to commercialize water and, (2) the challenge of carrying out solidarity and sustainable management, where the coverage benefits the entire population.

The platform is born

Over recent years there has been a series of events where members of environmental organizations, social movements, unions, public operators, authorities, activities and others, met to dialogue about the need to build a successful, participatory water management model that takes into account different experiences, gathers the achievements of businesses and/or associations, identifies their weaknesses and proposes ways to strengthen them, and focuses on the improvement of the service and its permanence as a public good.

With this vision, many social activists, water operators, workers in the potable water and sanitation sector in the region from Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina, meeting at the event “Octubre Azul Uruguayo” 2006, began the path toward the construction of this model that impels the reactivation of modernization of public firms.

Later, in Cochabamba (2007), members of the Coordinating Committee in Defence of Water and Life of Bolivia, and representatives of OSE, FFOSE and CNDAV of Uruguay met and edited a document manifesting the “will” to travel the road toward non-profit, public cooperation, and committed to exchange ideas and share the successful experience of the public management of services with whomever needs it in a solidarity fashion.

That same year, the Second RedVida Assembly was held in Lima. On that occasion the members agreed that within its Work Plan the construction of a successful public model would be the priority, a model that challenges inefficient, non participatory, excluding visions as the sole, unquestionable option.

In 2008 the event “Water, Common Good, Public Management and Alternatives” was held in Cochabamba, where participants drafted a FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT that establishes initial principles and contents on Public Community Agreements.

With these events as a precedent, representatives of civil and social organizations, public operators, unions, cooperatives, NGOs, federations, communities, universities and governments met in Paso Severino (Uruguay, April 2009) for the Confirmation of the Platform on Public Community Cooperation.

The formation of the Platform brought together institutions, organizations and groups committed to the defence of water as a fundamental human right and common, public good. Its main purpose is to promote and impel the signing and implementation of public and community cooperation agreements. In order to carry out this objective, once the Platform is established, it must be structured and consolidated. As a result, the coordination group drafted the “Project for the Public Community Agreements Platform, presented to ICCO & Kerk in Actie in July, 2009.

Said project is a detailed proposal about the guidelines to follow for the consolidation and operation of the Platform. Its principal objectives are the following:

  • To bring together diverse actors of social movements, public community businesses/systems professionals, government and international entities;
  • To create a collective space to discuss, improve, disseminate and implement public community agreements;
  • To facilitate, support, guide and offer seed funding for public community agreements;
  • To lobby governments (national and local) and other entities (international, national and local) which are in favour of democratised public water, and the human right to water, to promote public community agreements and seek new forms of strategic collaboration with civil, social and union actors in search of alternatives;
  • To consolidate a diverse system of water and sanitation management that is continental, public community, based on solidarity, reciprocity and an exchange of knowledge and technology, and is non-profit.

The strategy to fulfill the project objectives has three principal phases:

-First Phase of conception and establishment

-Second Phase of construction and elaboration

-Third Phase of implementation and action

The first phase concluded in April 2009, with the signing of the Commitment Framework Agreement in the Paso Severino event (Uruguay) and with it the establishment of the Platform.

Currently, the second phase is underway. It began with the establishment of one of the Technical Secretariat offices in the Abril Foundation (Cochabamba – Bolivia) in December 2009. In April of this year, work began in another office in the OSE (Montevideo-Uruguay).

The operational methodology of the Platform proposes a network at a regional and global level as the foundation for the work. In this sense, the Platform is a collective space for meeting, debate, cooperation, learning and co-action among members.

Pilot projects

Despite the fact that the project activities formally began after the signing of the agreement with the funder ICCO, in the months following the creation of the APC platform, the broadened coordination group worked on establishing two pilot projects, based on technical, political, social, environmental and economic criteria, defined for this process.

In this context, on November 5, 2008, the OSE (Sanitary State Works), a public firm that supplies Potable Water and Sanitation services in Uruguay, accepted a request for collaboration sent by AAPOS (Autonomous Administration for Potosí Sanitary Works) for advice in the implementation of a Potable System appropriate for the High Potosí Zone. Previously, the local populations were supplied by a cistern truck and water run off from the mountain. Prior to designing a project for a potable water system, the cooperating firm decided to send a technician to interview the AAPOS authorities to analyze the situation and facilitate the participation of OSE. The designated official for this was Engineer Pedro Lopez of UGD-OSE. The Board of Sanitary State Work Administration authorized Lopez to travel to Potosí between November 17 and 22.

As a result, Engineer Lopez travelled to Bolivia. On November 17, Pedro Lopez arrived in Potosí, where he held a coordination and information meeting with AAPOS authorities. He remained in the city until the 19th of November, visiting the zone, carrying out laboratory tests, field work and gathering the necessary data to evaluate the possibilities for a potable water system to supply the “Alto Potosí” barrio.

In the report about his visit, Engineer Lopez presented general data about the zone and its water supply, investment that was in process or planned, and an evaluation about water quality. It also included a proposal for the specific case of Alto Potosí and the problems that were detected, as well as some suggestions on how to overcome them.

The second experience was the project for the implementation of a public/public partnership between SEDAM of Huancayo-Peru and ABSA/SOBSA of Argentina. As background, we knew that SEDAM Huancayo, a community and potable water utility located in the Andes, has a long history of bad management by former mayors. In 2003 Mayor Barrios Ipenza attempted to privatize the company. In order to block this privatization bid, water defence movements in Huancayo and its counterparts at a national level in Peru developed an innovative public-public model as an alternative.

In 2006, the organization of social movements called the Water Defence Front of the Junin Region (FREDEAJUN) managed to block the privatization. This was not only possible because of the protests and mobilizations but also because of the participatory process that developed an alternative proposal to reform the public firm SEDAM Huancayo SA. This proposal included the establishment of a public-public partnership between SEDAM and Aguas Bonaerenses S.A (ABSA), a public water firm, worker owned and operated in the State of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In October 2006, the FENTAP met with the Union of Sanitation Workers from the Province of Buenos Aires (SOBSA) of Argentina, both members of International Public Services (ISP). This event took place in the framework of the Octubre Azul agreements in Uruguay. After the preliminary debates and a funding agreement with a European NGO, Josefina Gabriel of SUTAPAH travelled to the Argentina city of La Plata in February 2007. In March of that year a representative of SOBSA and a senior administrator from 5 de Septiembre, the operator that owns and manages SOSBA and part of ABSA, travelled to Lima and Huancayo. All of this led to a declaration of intent signed by FENTAP, FREDEAJUN, SUTAPAH and SOSBA in March 2007, in which they committed, based on a cooperation agreement between ABSA and SEDAM, to working together, and to strengthening the movement in Huancayo.

With this, the most experienced personnel from 5 de Septiembre met with SEDAM employees in order to present and consolidate the PUP proposal and to have an idea about the reality of the Peruvian firm. In April 2007, SOBSA presented an evaluation of SEDAM that not only demonstrated it was viable to introduce improvements into the company, but that it was possible with an investment less than what had been planned with the PSP.

The major step took place when the general administrator of the SEDAM decided to support the PUP proposal, culminating on June 21, 2007 with the signing of a contract between ABSA and SEDAM. The cooperation framework agreement between ABSA and SEDAM Huancayo establishes objectives and activities such as technological development, exchange of personnel and knowledge, development of skills for personnel and users, technology transfer and proposals for administrative improvements.

Despite its execution, the Agreement has not been developed due to a lack of local political will, confrontations related to national politics and an exhaustion of power at a grassroots level. While the Agreement has not been implemented as expected, it has worked as a barrier to new privatization attempts, which is an achievement considering the current unfavourable situation that exists in Peru.

New initiatives for agreements

As well as several initiatives to be made concrete, the Platform is currently implementing two agreements. The first between the Municipal Public Firm SEDACUSCO of Peru and the National Public Firm OSE of Uruguay, an agreement formalized last April 26 with the signing of a public-public partnership between both firms.

The second is being developed between ABSA of Argentina and Arequipa; a statement of intent has already been signed between both firms. These agreements take place in favourable political contexts and have the potential to demonstrate how public community agreements can increase the capacity for reform in the public community sector.

There is a great deal of road still to travel in the process of establishing the Platform that has the support of the members, the experience of the organizations and involved groups, the projects that will be impelled, and the examples with other platforms. However, the challenge of involving different actors and ensuring that the agreements are not just signed but implemented until they are complete requires the active and constant participation of everyone involved in the water management dynamic.

1