Clean Water In Tanzania

One of the most pressing issues of our time that the world is confronted with is the right to clean water and sanitation. Since water resources are finite and dwindling at an alarming rate, the scarcity of water precipitates vigorous encroachment of a handful of elites on the water right of the majority of the world’s population. Human Development Report (2006, p.2) recorded that more than one billion people living in developing countries do not have access to fresh water, whilst more than two and a half billion people lack basic sanitation facilities. The statistics show that when paying heed to countries grappling with water rights, it becomes manifest that the issue of water is prevalent in the less well-off countries. Nevertheless, it is

The largest country in East Africa with the total population of 52 million people as of 2016, Tanzania is home to 44 million people without access to adequate sanitation; meanwhile, 23 million people lack access to clean water (WaterAid, 2016). Unfortunately, a lack of access to sanitation and safe water takes their heaviest toll on children. Tanzania is infamous for its high under-five child mortality rate, and WaterAid (2016) records that more than 4,000 Tanzanian children die of diarrhoeal diseases owing to unclean water and unhygienic conditions. The harsh reality is that water privatization in Tanzania has been made possible by the government’s inability to address the water crisis in the country and the coercion by the World Bank to privatize the water systems. To complicate matters further, the government finally resorted to collaboration with a British multinational corporation—Biwater—which led to forcible water privatization in Tanzania (UNICEF, 2010). Paradoxically, water privatization did not address the water crisis in Tanzania, but it compounded the problem. Nonetheless, the account of water privatization in Tanzania was intriguing and exemplary in the way that the government, when everything went wrong, finally assumed the right responsibility and sued the Biwater for the damages caused, expelling the company from the

According to the Guardian (2016, para.5), the privatization of public water systems in Chile commenced in the 1980s when the military government officially relinquished water control and regulation to multinational corporations in the hope of establishing a market-driven economy. Unfortunately, a lack of oversight by the Chilean government of the private sectors led to transnational corporations monopolizing every aspect of water supply in the country. In opposition to the imposition of corporatocratic control, Chileans took to the streets and denounced water privatization but to no avail. Chileans were angered by the fact that under the water privatization policies, water prices were exorbitant, water services were unsatisfactory, and corporations took no action to address the growing water shortage in the future (the Guardian, 2016, para.3). In reality, water privatization in Chile was backed up by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund whose water privatization polices were an integral part of their neoliberal ideologies. Chile is a prime example because its government desperate to apply for loans from the World Bank and the IMF agreed to comply with their financial assistance policies, thereby encouraging water privatization. Collier (2015) states that “the World Bank and IMF have spent decades imposing water