Building Partnerships for Development in Water and Sanitation 12 Apr. 2008.20 Mar. 2008 <

http://www.bpd-waterandsanitation.org/web/w/www_1_en.aspx>

BPD is a world-wide network of partners involving government, business, civil society and donors who all partner to solve water issues.

“The current partnership context in Water and Sanitation.” 14 Apr. 2008. Adapted from BPD’s business plan. Jul. 2007 <

http://www.bpd-waterandsanitation.org/bpd/web/d/doc_184.pdf?statsHandlerDone=1>

     This document talks about how when the BPD ( Building partnerships for Development in Water and Sanitation) came in to existence, commercial private sector contracts were seen as the way to reform previously underperforming public utilities. This challenged NGOs to scale up their community approaches. Over time this changed due to exchange rate crises, cancelled contracts and other troubles. Now there is a shift to the public sector where there is decentralizing water and sanitation services down to the lowest possible level of government. In terms of the BPD; the kinds of partnerships it is engaging in is changing and now the number of government actors involved in the delivery of services from financing to implementation is significantly multiplied. Now there are more ‘public-public’ contracts. International private companies are finding the political and financial risks of large scale contracts in the developing countries are too unpredictable and large.  The smaller domestic private sector in developing countries is also being engaged to take on these projects. These companies remain below the radar and so now as their importance is being realized governments and regulators are looking at how to support them and regulate them.

     While this document throws light on how the nature of these partnerships are changing it doesn’t talk of what kind of partnerships work best for Water and Sanitation problems. All the same the fact that this document highlights the importance of public-private partnerships which is strengthened by the fact that this organization supports public, private sector and civil society decision makers and practitioners engaged in partnerships that provide water and sanitation in poor communities. This provides a strong reason as to why it is increasingly important for the private sector and the for-profit sector to come up with innovative ways to support these causes and form partnerships which alleviate these issues.

Lewis, Maureen & Miller, Ted “Public-private partnership in water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa” The Urban Institute Washington D.C. 16 Apr. 2008. 1987 <http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/2/1/70>

     This article talks about the deficiencies in the public water supply systems in the developing world such as Africa and speaks of the comparative advantages of Public-Private Partnerships for Water Supply. This is a good way to look at how governments and Corporations and NGOs can work together to deal with Water Supply in Africa. By subcontracting specific tasks such as billing, metering, maintenance of various components and tracking water loss to the private sector; both sectors will have comparative advantages that are best applied in conjunction with the other. This article provides good reasoning for how it will work but more explicit examples or references to actual partnerships would help in understanding the idea better.