The failings of World Water Day

Today's World Water Day once again celebrates government mismanagement of water supplies and calls for more of it, while rejecting what private suppliers can do and already do for the poor, despite their informal or illegal status.

In fact, a World Bank researcher has estimated that “in most cities in developing countries, more than half the population gets basic water service from suppliers other than the incumbent official utility.” So private vendors big and small must be doing something right for all the people whom governments have neglected. "Yet many NGOs and politicians still prefer ideology to ideas, spurning what the private sector delivers to the world’s poor," said Caroline Boin, IPN Project Director.

"On 22 March one billion people will, as usual, spend the day without clean water and a third of humanity without adequate sanitation. As usual, some three and a half million men, women and children will die from related diseases this year," she added.