Services d’eau et secteur prive dans les pays en developpement : perceptions croisees et dynamique des reflexions

This publication provides a summary of a five-year research programme of Agence Française de Développement  on public-private partnerships and questions the relevance of delegation models. It also shows how actors of development (donors, researchers, experts) are changing the way they perceive the private sector’s role in supplying water and sanitation in developing countries. A wide range of analyses have been made of private sector participation in the field of water and sanitation services, both from a disciplinary perspective (economy, geography, political science, history, sociology, etc.) and in terms of spaces and scales of study (urban/rural, urban monographs, regional analyses, global dynamics). This work by researchers and experts was mainly conducted during the period 1990-2000, during which structural adjustment reforms paved the way for major delegation contracts in Southern cities. The publication lies between academic research and strategic thinking by actors in the sector. It seeks to build bridges between this different research work, from research on the first urban networks to the identification of innovative post-Washington consensus forms of private sector participation. (Publisher's abstract)