Wellsprings of Charity

As everyone knows, it is the business of private companies and their investors to help people less fortunate than themselves. Multinational water companies, according to the Guardian's environment editor John Vidal, are a case in point. Their multi-million-pound schemes were "intended to end the cycle of drought and death that has afflicted many countries" and at present kills about six thousand children a day; but ungrateful natives have caused these philanthropic enterprises to founder: there are "growing doubts about privatisation projects" and "political and consumer unease".

The reason for this is clear. "In many settings," particularly the less civilised ones, "privatisation is a heavily politicised issue that is creating social and political discontent and sometimes outright violence," according to a United Nations report. Many companies, says John Vidal, have met "intense political resistance" after "having to raise prices significantly". Many companies, despite their intentions to help their fellow men by raising prices significantly, "have not been able to make money" and have gone back to "less risky markets in Europe and North America", where ingratitude is less prevalent.

Those who have benefited from water privatisation in developing countries tend to be "those living in relatively affluent urban pockets ... the very poor sections normally tend to be excluded," according to the UN report. "Sub-Saharan Africa has received less than 1% of all the money invested in water supplies by private companies in the last 10 years." Ending the cycle of drought and death is all very well, but if the country is hot and dry and the consumers too poor to pay, what is one to do? The chief executive of Suez Environment, which is privatising water in Haiti and South America, said, "We are not a political organisation, but how can we do our job if the political system in countries changes its mind so often? Private funding runs into ideological problems," while those who cannot pay merely run into biological ones.

It could all have been so different. "Some privatisations have been successful", though John Vidal tactfully refrains from saying whether they were successful for the companies or for the people whose water was being turned from a necessity into a commodity. In the 1990s, "privatisation was seen by the World Bank and G8 countries as the most effective way to bring clean water to large numbers of poor countries" which, after the usual fashion of poor countries, did not know what was good for them. Between 1990 and 1997, fourteen thousand million pounds were invested. In spite of this level of investment by people who presumably had a good deal of money and expected to make more, "the rich have mostly benefited at the expense of the poor". Well, fancy that.