World Development Movement admits sorry state of nationalized water

By Alex Singleton | 27 September 2005

In this week's e-mail newsletter from the World Development Movement, an anti-capitalist pressure group, there is an attack water privatization. It says Britain's Department for International Development is wrong to assist Sierra Leone which has asked DFID for help tendering out and regulating its water system. But the e-mail admits the sorry state of the state-run water system in Sierra Leone: only 28 percent of the population has access to clean drinking water. Thanks to a state-run system, 72 percent of the people have to drink dirty water.

Puzzlingly, this is the same failed system that the World Development Movement wants to keep, despite the overwhelming evidence that water privatization increses quality and access to water thanks to greater investment and overseas expertize. Unfortunately, some people prefer to put ideological purity before water purity.