Water access in Sucre, Bolivia: a case of governance deficit

Abstract

Bolivia is one of the countries on the American continent with the lowest rates of access to water, a situation that has caused confrontation between civil society and water utility managers in some cities. This research describes the water access scenario in Sucre, the capital of Bolivia, together with the key challenges faced by the company that manages the water services in the city. The case of Sucre is an example of how poor water governance can generate inefficiencies in the management of the service. Taking this into consideration, policy and institutional reforms are recommended to facilitate decision making aimed at improving the current situation of access to water.

Keywords:

• water governance
• institutional reforms
• Bolivia
• social conflict

Acknowledgements

Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (Project ECO2009-08824/ECON and Project ECO2012-32189) and the Government of Andalucia (Project P11-SEJ-7039) is acknowledged.

Notes

1. At the beginning of the 1980s, Bolivia faced an economic crisis, triggering negative growth rates and hyperinflation that reached 14,000%, a figure exceeded only by Germany in the post–Second World War period. In this context and in view of its growing external debt, the Bolivian government led by Victor Paz Estenssoro started its so-called New Economic Policy with Supreme Decree 21060 (Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia, 1985). Thus, together with the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) promoted by the WB, IDB and IMF, the Bolivian government introduced economic stabilization programs based on a free-market model. The SAPs are a condition imposed on countries by the IMF, WB and IDB in order to receive financial support designed to address a serious problem of international payments. They follow a neoliberal logic that mainly benefits international financial institutions, politicians and companies in rich countries, and some elite classes in southern countries. Thanks to these policies, the private sector gradually became larger due to the poor quality of public services; but the fact is that such policies, including the water policy, have been mainly promoted by transnational corporations and financial institutions, causing a far-reaching crisis in governance.

2. There was a lack of both transparency and competition in the procedure followed to award the water service concessions in Cochamba and El Alto. In the case of Aguas de Illimani, formal complaints were filed relating to last-minute changes in the norms of the public tender to allow the concession to be awarded even though there was only one bidder (Crespo, 2004). There were also changes in the terms and conditions of the tender (higher tariffs) after the proposal had been submitted, to further benefit the bidder, and the entire process was carried out in haste to ensure the service was privatized before the end of the presidential term of office. In the case of Aguas de Tunari, there was also only one bidder as of April 1999 and the tender was declared null and void. However, in September 1999 a concession contract was signed with that bidder, following negotiations violating the Contract Law (Nickson & Vargas, 2002). Furthermore, the regulatory authority in both cases was very weak and suffered from numerous problems (Ducci, 2007).

3. According to the National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology (SISMET) of the Republic of Bolivia (http://www.senamhi.gob.bo).

4. As explained by the technical manager of the water company ELAPAS, Edgar Campos, in an interview conducted specifically for this study. Most of the data in this section have been provided by several interviews with Gonzalo Tirado, ELAPAS general manager, and Edgar Campos.

5. In March 2011, as a result of the rains, a landslide destroyed about 30 metres of the Ravelo adductor canal, cutting off the water supply for three days. Some 90% of the water from the Ravelo channel managed to reach the treatment plant in ELAPAS. As a result, 10 neighbourhoods, accounting for 40% of the population, ran out of water.

6. According to the National Statistics Institute, there are 49,979 households in the city of Sucre, of which 723 were surveyed. The survey was conducted with the support of the University of San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca. The 723 households were distributed by subsector, referenced on the street plan of the city of Sucre, in order to distribute the sample size in proportion to each subsector.