BRUSSELS / LIMA / MANILA, Feb 02 (IPS) – Last month, we joined more than 1000 representatives from all sectors of civil society who came together in Santiago de Chile to debate the future of – and threats to – public services the world over.
Participants discussed the chronic underfunding which continues to drive economic inequality, injustice and austerity, and the neocolonial policies that maintain the status quo.
Today those debates have resulted in the launch of “Our Future is Public: The Santiago Declaration for Public Services” – a momentous agreement signed by more than 200 organisations vowing to work to “transform our systems, valuing human rights and ecological sustainability over GDP growth and narrowly defined economic gains.”
One of the most damaging initiatives that has deeply affected the delivery of public services and infrastructure projects on all continents is the rise of public-private partnerships, or PPPs.
They have long been promoted by institutions such as the World Bank as a silver bullet to close the so-called gap to finance investments in services and infrastructure. The premise is that the private sector can deliver these services more efficiently and to a higher standard than the public sector, despite extensive evidence to the contrary.
We lay the pitfalls of PPPs bare in our new report History RePPPeated II: Why public-private partnerships are not the solution – the second in a series of investigations documenting the impacts of PPPs across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Launched at the Santiago conference with some of the partners responsible for investigating and authoring the case studies, the report not only highlights negative impacts of PPPs, but sets out recommendations for how to better finance infrastructure and public services in the face of false solutions that have been proposed given the context of the current polycrisis.
These narratives wholly reflect red flags that are raised in the Santiago Declaration.
Through these investigations, we discovered failures on multiple levels in PPPs covering infrastructure such as roads and water supplies, as well as vital public services like healthcare and education.
From escalating costs for the stretched public sector to environmental and social impacts, we found time and again that communities had been ignored, displaced, and had their basic rights violated by thoughtless projects designed and implemented in the pursuit of profit.
A prime example is that of the the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) in Nepal. First announced nearly a quarter of a century ago, the project’s intention was to ship clear, dependable and inexpensive water to 1.5 million individuals in Kathmandu.
And but, 24 years later, residents are nonetheless ready, whereas communities on the Melamchi water supply are dealing with shortage of water and eroded livelihoods. As an alternative of secure, clear ingesting water – an internationally recognised human proper – they’ve witnessed a rare revolving door of personal corporations and institutional funders, together with the World Financial institution, who’ve every did not ship.
So as to add to the MWSP’s colossal failure, 80 hectares of farmland have been misplaced to the challenge, a heavy blow to native residents, and as much as 80 households have been forcibly displaced because of development.
Who owns and controls our sources and public companies grew to become much more vitally vital with the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in March 2020. Market-based fashions can’t be relied upon to ship on human rights or the struggle in opposition to inequalities as they’re accountable solely to their shareholders and to not their customers.
This ensuing concentrate on revenue is overwhelmingly obvious in our case research from Liberia. Right here, US agency Bridge Worldwide Academies (now NewGlobe) ‘abandoned’ its college students and lecturers in the course of the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, shutting down faculties and chopping lecturers’ salaries by 80-90 per cent, regardless of being paid by the federal government.
And but, in 2021 the Liberian authorities indefinitely prolonged the challenge, successfully subsidising a US for-profit agency at a value that’s a minimum of double authorities spending on public faculties.
In Peru, the Expressway Yellow Line has emerged as one of the controversial tasks ever carried out. This toll highway was alleged to ease congestion points within the capital metropolis Lima, however as an alternative toll charges have been unreasonably elevated on a minimum of eight events.
This generated virtually $23 million for the personal firm concerned and transpired with the complicity of public officers. In the meantime, the Peruvian state suffered financial damages of US$1.2 million because of below the desk negotiations between public officers and the personal firm, which led to the wrong implementation and improper modifications of the contract years after it was initially signed.
At this time, questions relating to the challenge and conflicts surrounding its implementation stay, whereas Lima residents’ expectations of high quality highway infrastructure to enhance dwelling circumstances for individuals who have been most affected, proceed to go unmet.
The human price of the PPP tasks showcased by Historical past RePPPeated II is self-evident, however they’re removed from the exception. Fairly they serve as an example frequent failures with the PPP mannequin that threat compromising elementary human rights and that undermine the struggle in opposition to local weather change and inequalities.
Their persevering with promotion is likely one of the many the explanation why we assist the Santiago Declaration. Along with all its signatories, we are going to strengthen resistance to PPPs with their concentrate on private-led pursuits and promote public-public or public-common partnerships for a future that’s public.
Océane Blavot is Senior Marketing campaign and Outreach Coordinator, Improvement Finance, European Community on Debt and Improvement; Rodolfo Bejarano is Economist and Analyst – New Monetary Structure, Latin American Community for Financial and Social Justice; Mae Buenaventura is Debt Justice Programme, Workforce Supervisor, Asian Individuals’s Motion on Debt and Improvement
The Santiago Declaration on Public Services, is a world manifesto signed by greater than 300 organisations from world wide, and which was launched on the finish of final week. The Declaration alerts the beginning of a global motion to maneuver away from the privatisation of public companies and in the direction of a future that’s publicly funded and managed. Additionally it is the result of a 4-day convention throughout which a number of CSOs from world wide launched a report containing a collection of investigations highlighting the failures of the PPP mannequin in tasks world wide, titled History RePPPeated II.
This OpEd is authored by three of the report’s authors.
IPS UN Bureau
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
#worldnews
