The poor live in settlements that are routinely

 The poor live in settlements that are routinely targeted for slum clearance, preventing
extension of networked water services to their communities.
 The poor have been pushed onto more marginal quality land, resulting loss of nearby
sources of potable water and exposure to polluted groundwater sources, given industrial
activity.

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 Water vendors and sales of ‘pure water’ sachets complicate the picture. Because access
to piped water supply is not universal, numerous unregulated third party actors, both
formal and informal have stepped into the breach to supply water to parts of the state
lacking access to pied water. In addition, water is provided to the community through
“kongas”
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and neighbor to neighbor sales.
 The NGOs have received complaints from community members about landlords that are
opposed to extending pipes into their neighborhoods, as the landlords earn money from
charging tenants for water and building the cost into rent. Tenants also do not receive
water bills directly, only property owners receive bills. The exception is shared water
facilities in housing tenements in older slum neighborhoods where water and power are
shared services.
 Ultimately, the NGOs argue that services like water have historically been considered
‘public goods’, so important to the health and development of modern society that the
state requires these services to be provided to everyone. Universal provision, they
argue, requires strong public sector involvement, investment and oversight under the
principles of democratic governance – transparency, accountability and participation.
Policy Options
The World Bank’s stance on how to improve water supply in Nigeria reflects shifts in
International policy towards universal provision of safe water. From an emphasis on the right to
water and treating it as a social good first articulated in the Mar del Plata Conference in 1977
and The Delhi Principles of 1990, a competing standard emerged in 1992 at a meeting of global
water experts in Dublin. The Dublin Principles reflected growing concerns about sustainability
and the ideas of natural scarcity and carrying capacity, and called on a market approach to
ration water. To critics, this shift and splintering of water reform policies reflected the rise of
neoliberal politicians favoring small government, low taxes and market solutions in nations that
have a large influence in the IFIs (e.g. US, UK, Australia). The new policy consensus treats
water as an economic good to deal with water scarcity and water stress, not just for rich
countries, but also to be implemented in poor countries. The World Bank theoretically
acknowledges a role for the public sector, but in practice it has pursued privatization since the
mid- ’80s. This has led to a growing movement of global citizens opposing privatization and
globalization and arguing for water as a human right
3
.
The range of policy responses to water supply problems typically includes the following:
 Privatization, Private Sector Participation (PSP), Public Private Partnerships (PPP) – A
strategy where public institutions turn over all or part of their assets and/or operations
over to private companies. The idea is that, due to the profit motive, private actors will