Everyday Water Struggles in Buenos Aires: the Problem of Land Tenure In
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New Rules, New Roles: Does PSP Benefit the Poor? Everyday Water Struggles in Buenos Aires: The Problem of Land Tenure in the Expansion of Potable Water and Sanitation Service to Informal Settlements Florencia Almansi Ana Hardoy Gustavo Pandiella Ricardo Schusterman Gaston Urquiza Eric Gutierrez Florencia Almansi, Ana Hardoy, Gustavo Pandiella, Ricardo Schusterman, and Gaston Urquiza are staffers of the International Institute for Environment and Development – Latin America, based in Buenos Aires. Eric Gutierrez is Policy Officer of WaterAid in London. The research was conducted in Spanish and much of the report was originally written in Spanish. New Rules, New Roles: Does PSP Benefit the Poor? Contents Map of the three main concessions.......................................................................................................... 3 I. Executive Summary of the Synthesis Report............................................................................. 4 II. Case Summary .......................................................................................................................... 6 III. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 10 IV. Life in the Barrios of Buenos Aires........................................................................................... 14 The struggles of San Martin.....................................................................................................15 Villa Zelmira – Left on their own...............................................................................................17 Jardines Uno – Building from scratch ...................................................................................... 19 Key insights from the life stories ..............................................................................................21 V. Legal Issues in the Water Concessions of Buenos Aires......................................................... 24 Legal land tenancy and the provision of services .................................................................... 25 The Aguas Argentinas Concession.......................................................................................... 26 The Azurix and AGBA Concessions ........................................................................................ 26 The role of the regulators......................................................................................................... 27 Reflections on where the problem lies ..................................................................................... 30 VI. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 32 References............................................................................................................................................. 36 Appendix : Land laws and the regularisation of illegal land in Buenos Aires......................................... 38 Background to the urban land laws.......................................................................................... 39 Figure 1 - Laws regulating land use and urbanisation ............................................................. 39 Decree-Law 8.912 on Territorial Organisation and Land Use.................................................. 40 Figure 2 – Legal requirements for the regulation of urban land ............................................... 40 Informal settlement trends in Buenos Aires ............................................................................. 44 The public and private categories of illegal urban land ............................................................ 45 The Ley Pierri Title Legalization (Law 24.374 or Land Tenure Law)........................................ 46 The role of private water utilities in the regularisation and the creation of urban land.............. 47 Acronyms AGBA Aguas del Gran Buenos Aires (a private water company) CEAS Spanish acronym for Ecumenical Center for Social Action ETOSS Spanish acronym for the Regulatory Office for the Aguas Argentinas Concession POES Programs of Service Optimisation and Expansion ORAB Spanish acronym for the Regulatory Office for the Azurix and AGBA concessions OSN Spanish acronym for the National Sanitation Works PEN Spanish acronym for National Executive Order ADA Spanish acronym for the Water Authority IIED-AL Instituto Internacional de Medio Ambiente y Desarollo de América Latina WEDC Water, Engineering and Development Centre 2 © WaterAid and Tearfund 2003 Everyday Water Struggles in Buenos Aires Map of the three main concessions © WaterAid and Tearfund 2003 3 New Rules, New Roles: Does PSP Benefit the Poor? I. Executive Summary of the Synthesis Report overnments, both northern and private companies, and there must be clauses in southern, have rightly placed contracts to prevent this dependence. Gt hemselves under much pressure to Without adequate government capacity, no achieve better water and sanitation coverage. reform processes can be successful. The private The Millennium Development Goals aim to halve sector cannot be contracted without tackling the proportion of people without access to water failing government. The government’s role to and sanitation services by 2015. Millions die facilitate, monitor and regulate is as much an every year from lack of access to safe water and essential element in PSP as in public and user- adequate sanitation. On one hand there is an managed utilities. Yet, it seems that this undeniable urgency about these issues that requirement is being practically ignored in the makes prolonged discussion frustrating and a rush to establish PSP. It is essential that donors questionable use of resources. But on the other, refocus efforts to building government capacity at the risk of the blanket promotion of one local and central levels. debatable method of reform is an unnecessary waste of scarce resources. The involvement of local communities is often lacking in PSP reform programmes. Where PSP Most southern governments have consistently has failed to deliver the promised gains, the case failed to deliver affordable and sustainable water often is that the poor are seen mainly as and sanitation to the poor. It is difficult to recipients, rather than contributors to summarise the causes for this failure as each development. Whether projects involve large or situation is different and complex. However, small-scale PSP, the focus is on giving contracts some broad problems cut across many public or concessions to the private sector. Social utilities and municipal services: bad financial mobilisation and community participation, proven management, low funding priority, lack of staff time and again as prerequisites for sustainable experience and qualifications, absent or weak development, are seen as burdens and non- customer service orientation, political essential components of the task. Failure to interference, little or no independent regulation consult communities means that the interests of and an absence of civil society consultation. the poor are often not being represented. It Many of these problems have been described as results in a lack of ownership over projects and attributable to weak government capacity – an absence of accountability between users and equally acute in urban and rural contexts. service providers. It seems that the lack of community involvement that led to previous Our research shows that the policy of private failures is continuing, raising serious doubts over sector participation (PSP) does not the sustainability of PSP projects. comprehensively tackle the underlying causes of water utilities’ failure to serve the poor. In four Cost recovery and capital cost contributions are key areas capacity building, community in most cases necessary for water services to be participation, finance and institutional reform, sustainable. However, there are problems in the major problems persist, making it unlikely that the application of these principles, which often multinational private sector is going to play any results in denying the poor access to services. significant role in achieving the Millennium Expensive technology choices and a failure to Development Goals. consider the non-cash contribution of the poor are widespread in PSP contracting. Donors are Currently the pursuit of a policy of PSP generally guilty of promoting an approach that is narrow undermines local and national government and mechanistic, allowing for little flexibility and capacity. For one, it limits the ability of the public absence of perspectives incorporating sector to take services back should PSP fail or community action and considering the when contracts end. Private sector contracting complexities of poverty. must not result in irreversible dependence on 4 © WaterAid and Tearfund 2003 Everyday Water Struggles in Buenos Aires Changing the role of government, by effectively With these findings, we are opposed to donors reducing its capacity through reductions at pressuring developing countries to accept PSP in central level, but not increasing personnel at local water services as a condition of aid, trade or debt government levels, erases benefits that could be relief. To promote a policy regardless of specific gained from decentralisation per se (such as contexts increases the likelihood of failure responsiveness to people’s needs, greater especially when