Despite large aid support, Ghana's privatised water utility AVRL consistently failed to meet its contractual commitments. Water is now back in state hands, but it will need increased investment and a vigilant civil society to deliver the services Ghanaians need.
From South Africa to Brazil, from Italy to the US, in Uruguay, Greece, Norway, the UK and in many other countries, municipal councils are taking services back under public control. Public Service workers and their fellow community members are not only defending public services but are also struggling to make them democratic and responsive to the people's needs and desires.
Despite immense pressure by corporations that have sought to undermine it, Costa Rica's public energy and telecommunications company stands out as a model in terms of its coverage, efficiency, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.
A combination of opposing privatisation and putting forward practical alternatives is helping water campaigners mount an effective challenge to austerity in Greece.
This working paper and infographic provide an overview of a great ‘fire sale’ of public services and national assets across Europe that is providing profits for a few transnational companies but is often fiercely opposed by its citizens.
Why are those responsible for the EU crisis profiting from it? Why are the same policies that caused the crisis being used to resolve it? An infographic expose of the EU crisis, its causes and its social impacts.
Experience worldwide shows that EC-imposed privatisation on crisis countries will not work. The alternative is not reinforcing the status quo, but using citizen power and labour to reinvigorate public services and democratically transform the state.
A video documentary on the impacts of neo-libaral power reforms worldwide and the search for democratic and sustainable energy policies. TNI/Living Films, December 2003
The European Commission is deliberately promoting privatisation of water services as one of the conditions of bailouts, it acknowledged in a letter to civil society groups.
TNI and other civil society organisations, in an open letter, have denounced the European Comission's admission that it imposes water privatization conditionalities as part of its 'rescue' package to crisis countries.
The Transnational Institute (TNI), in cooperation with the Municipal Services Project (MSP) and the Latin American Programme for Distance Education in Social Sciences (PLED) is offering a free web-based course on Alternatives to Privatisation: Non-Commercial Public Services Options in the Global South. The course will begin on 8 October 2012 and will comprise a series of eight weekly sessions.
