Popular participation, equity, and co-production of water and sanitation services in Caracas, Venezuela

Abstract

This article argues that the technical water committees in Venezuela are an example of co-production of public service delivery between state and citizen. In practical terms, the committees help to reduce information asymmetries between service providers and citizen-users and improve accountability. Unlike depoliticized notions of co-production that have been celebrated in the mainstream development literature, however, this experiment in urban planning promotes participation as empowerment, because the committees are part of a wider political agenda, engage citizens in a broader process of social change, promote rethinking of the concept of citizenship, and have thus far avoided elite capture.

Keywords:

• participation
• empowerment
• equity
• governance
• co-production
• decentralization

Notes

1. Interviews with Victor Díaz, current coordinator of Hidrocapital’s Community Management Office and community promoter for Antímano, 20 August 2012; and Santiago Arconada, long-time water activist and first coordinator of Hidrocapital’s Community Management Office, 24 August 2012.

2. Interview with Hidrocapital community promoters, 28 August 2012. (Community promoters are utility staff people who act as liaisons between the neighbourhood MTAs and the water company.)

3. The parties to the Punto Fijo pact were: Acción Demócratica (AD, Democratic Action); the Christian-democratic Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI, Committee of Independent Political Organization); and the small, leftist Unión Republicana Democrática (URD, Democratic Republican Union). The primary goal of the agreement was to share power and resources among these three parties while excluding challengers, primarily the Communist Party of Venezuela (Wilpert, 2006, p. 12).

4. Interview with Santiago Arconada, 24 August 2012.

5. As Fernandes (2010, pp. 58–59) describes, the outcomes of decentralization were contradictory. On the one hand, decentralization was part of broader neoliberal measures promoting fiscal austerity and also led to the concentration of resources in wealthier municipalities, exacerbating uneven urban development. On the other hand, decentralization allowed for the emergence of new power bases outside of the country’s traditional corporatist structures, which promoted greater diversity in political-party activity and also encouraged social-movement organizing outside of clientelist networks.

6. By the late 1990s, poverty had reached astronomical levels. At the end of 1996, 86% of the Venezuelan population was poor, and 65% lived in extreme poverty (Buxton, 2004, p. 122).

7. Interview with Victor Díaz, Hidrocapital community coordinator, 20 August 2012.

8. Interview with Santiago Arconada, 24 August 2012.

9. At the time, Faría was a member of the Patria Para Todos party, a splinter group of La Causa Radical, which also promoted participatory forms of democracy.

10. The tragedy struck December 16, 1999, in the coastal state of Vargas. Over the course of three days, torrential rains, floods and landslides killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed thousands of homes and completely disrupted the state’s infrastructure, including the water service.

11. Interview with Victor Diaz, 20 August 2012.

12. Communal councils are elected neighbourhood planning bodies that identify and prioritize community needs and execute community development projects. With the adoption of the 2006 Organic Law on Communal Councils, the MTAs were subsumed under the communal councils as a working group. It is the communal councils that receive and manage the finances for MTA-led water and sanitation projects. Enshrined in law in 2009, the communes bring together all of the communal councils in a given geographic area to better coordinate projects and initiatives, including the development of the social economy.

13. Interview with Santiago Arconada, 24 August 2012.

14. Focus group with Antímano MTA spokeswomen, 22 November 2012. Lacabana and Cariola (2005) also make similar observations.

15. Interview with Hidrocapital community promoters, 28 August 2012. According to the promoters, in some cases the community members already change the valves; however, in Antímano and most other parishes the operations engineers manage the pumps and valves. These engineers work for a private company, Empresa Carrillo, under contract with Hidrocapital. According to Hidrocapital promoter Dircia García, having the communities manage the valves would be a source of local employment (since the utility would pay them), and safer. Security is a perennial concern in the barrios, and outsiders are often at greatest risk.

16. Interview with Victor Díaz, 20 August 2012.

17. Interview with Santiago Arconada, 24 August 2012.

18. Spokespeople (voceros/voceras) are elected representatives of neighbourhood MTAs. The term ‘spokesperson’ is used instead of terms such as ‘president’ or ‘leader’ in view of the preference for more horizontal organizational structures.

19. Personal communication with MTA spokesperson Florencia Gutiérrez, 28 October 2012.

20. Interview with Victor Díaz, 4 December 2012.

21. Personal communication with voceras during a tour of Carapita, 2 October 2012; interview with MTA vocera Sulay Morales, 11 November 2012.