http://www.focusweb.org/content/treading-troubled-waters

This paper is an attempt to collate and integrate field experiences, on-the-ground consultations and published materials from official and alternative sources that delved into: 1) the possibility of having “water for all” (for human use)—from source to tap, and; 2) the initiatives and activities that have been undertaken to achieve this. It offers recommendations and options for policy reforms and developmental initiatives in the management of water service delivery. The data were generated through roundtable discussions, field research, interviews and in the course of implementing the project Capability-Building Program on Performance Benchmarking of Water Districts in the Philippines.

(22 March 2012) World Water Day – Launch of the website www.right2water.eu  for European Citizen Initiative “Water is a Human Right not a commodity” sponsored by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU). This website will be one of the tools for the collection of signatures.

 dried water_eng_for web.pdf dried water_french_for web.pdf

March 2012  By Irfan Zamzami, Amrta Institute for Water Literacy

This paper was prepared and presented at the Alternative World Water Forum (FAME) in Marseilles, France.

The video highlights the innovative role that communities in waterless areas in the Philippines play. With examples from two communities in the National Capital Region or Metro Manila, where service provision is provided by two private concessionaires, Patak-Patak shows how communities organize and help themselves when both government and private water fail to provide water to the poor. By securing dependable water supply from third party bulk water supplier, the cooperative or consumer-owned water utilities establish mechanisms to ensure that water services remain in the public domain or under community control.  Through the cooperative, democratic control and peer-level monitoring and enforcement of rules in the establishment of improved water supply and distribution systems were ensured.  Communities also take on roles in financing water services. Patak-Patak offers a critical insight on the positive role that communities play in bridging the gap in water service provision in the Philippines. These associative water systems are clearly charting new paths and options for the Philippine’s waterless population. They highlight the necessity and urgency for an enabling institutional and policy environment that will allow for such alternatives to develop and flourish. The video is produced by the Institute for Popular Democracy, Focus on the Global South and the Reclaiming Public Water. The video can be viewed/ accessed at http://blip.tv/focusweb/patak-patak-5962046 or http://www.focusweb.org/content/video-patak-patak

Public-Public Partnerships Provide Affordable, Efficient Drinking Water and Sanitation to Cash- and Resource-Strapped Communities 
New Food & Water Europe Report Shows that Municipalities Can Collaborate, Avoid Privatizing Assets

Public-Public Partnerships: An Alternative Model to Leverage the Capacity of Municipal Water Utilities, shows that municipalities can forge partnerships with one another to efficiently deliver drinking water and wastewater service while ensuring that these resources are kept under public control. Down Load the report 

 boletin PAPC No 1 Version INGLES.pdf

While the Platform for Public Community Partnerships of the Americas has been realizing several bulletins in Spanish, this is the first bulletin that has been produced in English. It has updates of our work in Colombia and Bolivia during the last year along with some background of how this project was born.

"Movement 136" is an initiative founded by the residents of Thessaloniki, northern Greece, in an attempt to stop the privatization plan which includes the selling of "ΕΥΑΘ" state owned water company. Helen Skopis spoke to one of the members of the movement, Katerina Tzanetea about their aimings. http://goodafternoonathens.blogspot.com/2011/09/movement-136-12.html