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This paper aims to locate developments in water delivery within broader financialization trends by considering three aspects of water management. First, despite clear failings of privatization over the past twenty years, state support for the private sector continues. Second, innovations have emerged so that water consumption generates wealth for private investment finance. Finally, private enterprises have gained increasing influence in sector policy. The paper demonstrates that financialization is incompatible with social objectives in water delivery. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

This paper aims to locate developments in water delivery within broader financialization trends by considering three aspects of water management. First, despite clear failings of privatization over the past twenty years, state support for the private sector continues. Second, innovations have emerged so that water consumption generates wealth for private investment finance. Finally, private enterprises have gained increasing influence in sector policy. The paper demonstrates that financialization is incompatible with social objectives in water delivery.

Policies to promote privatisation in developing-country infrastructure gained momentum in the early 1990s as donors grew increasingly frustrated with efforts to strengthen public sector services that continued to fail. The strategy was intended to bring both finance and efficiency to ailing infrastructure throughout the developing world. Nearly two decades later the results have been disappointing, particularly in the areas of greatest need. The extent of investor interest in water and electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was massively overestimated and the hoped-for private investment failed to materialise. Rates of access to electricity and water remain far below those of other developing regions. In response to the failings of privatisation there has been a redoubling of efforts to attract investors, albeit with the recognition that this might take longer than originally thought. Privatisation in various guises is still prominent on the policy agenda. This paper critically assesses the motives behind the drive for private sector participation (PSP) in water and electricity in SSA, and reviews measures adopted by governments and donors to entice investors. In terms of estructuring and pricing, sector policies have the underlying objective of facilitating private investment and reducing the risk exposure for potential investors. In addition, a plethora of donor initiatives have emerged with the aim of bringing private investment into the region, and these too focus on reducing risk for the private sector. As a result, on offer to the private sector are the least challenging and most lucrative aspects of delivery, which are tightly ring-fenced and bound by guarantees. In industrialised economies, discussions of the merits of PSP highlight the importance of transferring risk to the private sector in order to generate efficiency gains. In contrast, as regards attracting PSP into utilities in SSA, the focus is on reducing the risk to which the private sector is exposed. But this risk is not reduced, it is ...

Over the past twenty years, the focus of development policy has shifted from the state to the private sector. Privatisation is now central to utility reform in much of SSA. This paper sets out developments in water privatisation and reviews the evidence regarding its impact. Water privatisation has been carried out to some degree in at least fourteen countries in the region, and many other governments are at various stages in the privatisation process. However, in some cases privatisation has been difficult to achieve, and a few countries have successfully provided water under public ownership. Evidence on the impact of privatisation indicates that the performance of privatised utilities has not changed dramatically, but that enterprises have continued to perform well, or not so well, depending both on their state when they were privatised and on the wider economic context. The evidence points to internal improvements in terms of financial management. However, governments face considerable difficulties in attracting investors and regulating private utilities. Furthermore, privatisation fails to address some of the fundamental constraints affecting water utilities in SSA, such as finance, the politicised nature of service delivery, and lack of access for the poor. A preoccupation with ownership may obscure the wider goals of reform.

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- Chapter 1: Introduction and Background to the SoP Approach -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 The Changing State of Consumption Studies -- 1.3 Evolution of the SoP Approach -- 1.3.1 Phase 1: Consumption Norms -- 1.3.2 Phase 2: Food Systems -- 1.3.3 Phase 3: PSSoP -- 1.4 The SoP Approach's Durability -- 1.5 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 2: The SoP Approach: Theoretical Background and Empirical Practice -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Theoretical Underpinnings -- 2.3 Fundamentals for a SoP Analysis -- 2.4 The SoP Approach: Challenges in Practice -- 2.5 The SoP Approach Compared to GCC Approaches -- 2.6 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 3: Understanding Material Cultures -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 The Importance of Material Cultures -- 3.3 Social Reproduction, Financialization and Material Cultures -- 3.4 Framing Material Culture-The 10Cs -- 3.5 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 4: Insights from Operationalizing the Systems of Provision Approach -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Addressing the Horizontal and Scholarship -- 4.3 Operationalizing the SoP Approach: Social Reproduction in Practice -- 4.3.1 Consumption Norms in Housing -- 4.3.2 Water -- 4.3.3 Health Services -- 4.3.4 Clothing and Fashion -- 4.4 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5: A SoP Approach to Understanding Food Consumption -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 Food Production Systems: Tell Me What You (Do Not) Eat -- 5.3 Processes: Food Production, Financialization and Neoliberalism -- 5.3.1 Pressure to Increase Consumption -- 5.3.2 Compulsions to Eat and Diet -- 5.4 From Financialization to Food Cultures -- 5.5 Material Cultures of Foods -- 5.5.1 10Cs and Food Consumption Cultures -- 5.5.2 How (Not) to Promote Healthy Eating Habits? -- 5.6 Conclusion -- References.

it is increasingly apparent that the privatization experiment in sub-Saharan Africa has failed. This book shows that the state is set to dominate service delivery for the foreseeable future in much of the region, and that the public sector must be considered as a viable policy option for the delivery of water and electricity.

This article is concerned with the ways that diet-related health outcomes (including increased incidence and severity of Covid-19) are linked to the system of provision for food. Worldwide obesity has tripled in the past three decades, creating an immense strain on health services, with poor diet associated with 22 per cent of global deaths in 2017. We show that neoliberal and financialised global systems of food production have intensified dysfunctional practices such as land grabs and price speculation. Moreover, capitalist expansion of production inevitably creates pressures to increase consumption such that malnutrition from overeating runs neck and neck with undernutrition on a global scale. It is shown how food corporates (producers, retailers, and so on) are instrumental in creating avenues to affect our diets in ways that are far more effective than government campaigns to promote healthy eating. It is these powerful systemic corporate interests that need to be addressed in order to improve diets and consequent health outcomes.