International solidarity in water : public-public partnerships in North-East Europe

Report of a study on successful examples of public sector water undertakings in transition and developing countries. This study looks at a number of cases in North Eastern Europe, and has been presented at the Third World Water Forum (Kyoto, 16-23 March 2003). The authors believe the international water community should learn more from the achievements of municipalities in transition countries in North-east Europe. Since the late 1980s, the cities and towns of Poland and the small Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have carried out fundamental reforms of their water services, by creating competent and viable municipal water services – within the public sector. They did so with the help and support from established municipal water operations in neighbouring countries around the Baltic Sea, through ‘twinning’ arrangements which created public-public partnerships – PUPs – to build the new municipal operations. Many of them have obtained long-term investment finance from development banks, in some cases without a government guarantee being required. The study is a contribution to the debate on the reform of the water sector and sustainable water development and PSI will continue to promote working models aimed at the achievement of public interest considerations. The key features – restructuring within the public sector, long-term finance from development banks, and international solidarity and support through PUPs – provide further indicators of what can be achieved without privatisation.