The Politics of Underdevelopment: Metered to Death—How a Water Experiment Caused Riots and a Cholera Epidemic

Abstract

Water privatization programs in South Africa, part of a government policy aimed at making people pay for the full cost of running water (“total cost recovery”), was developed by private water companies and the World Bank to finance improved water supplies and build the country's economy. Instead the programs are causing more misery than development. Millions of poor people have had their water supply cut off because of inability to pay, forcing them to get their water from polluted rivers and lakes and leading to South Africa's worst cholera outbreak—which the government paid millions of dollars to control. Residents in some townships are rebelling, and many of the private multinational water companies are reassessing their involvement in South Africa.