| Popis: |
This chapter tells two stories, from Uruguay and South Africa, about how grass-roots struggles to improve access to water and sanitation are vital to equitable service delivery. Both stories take place in countries where progressive governments have promised to overcome historical inequalities in service provision and access to water is a constitutional right. Coverage rates are much higher in Uruguay than in South Africa, however. We argue that despite promises to realize the human right to water, grass-roots campaigns help to achieve equity gains in practice. In Uruguay, thanks to the success of a referendum campaign led by workers and community members to make water a human right guaranteed by the constitution, private contracts were reversed, and the public water company has achieved nearly universal coverage not by spending more but by spending better. In South Africa, by contrast, where water is also a constitutional right, local elites have insisted on expensive private sector solutions to recent water shortages and to meet the needs of underserved populations, such as contracting out service extension and delivery and restricting access to the poor. |
