Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 183)
TUESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2006
PROFESSOR TOM
FRANKS, MS
VICKY CANN
AND MR
ANTONIO MIRANDA
Q180 Chairman: I am going to ask
Vicky Cann a question relating to that because you have advocated
public-public partnerships and you have quoted some examples.
One can see the obvious virtue of public water agencies co-operating
with each other to share best practice, but how does it work across
a mix of public agencies? What are the criteria that make public-public
partnerships work? You have mentioned Tamil Nadu, you have mentioned
Uganda, you have mentioned Brazil as well, so outside operator
to operator what are the benefits of other kinds of public-public
partnerships?
Ms Cann: I think there are a number
of advantages. I think the water operator partnerships proposal
as a practical example of public-public partnerships has a number
of benefits, including the fact that it is not-for-profit. Utilities
taking part can recover their costs, they can get paid their salaries,
they can get paid their travel expenses, but all other money is
being maximised back for the utilities, so I think that is the
real advantage. The biggest advantage is about the fact that these
partnerships can be south-south and what we are here essentially
to talk about, I guess, is aid and how aid can make a contribution
to this sector. Aid has traditionally focused on how the north
can help the south in the sense that the north has answers to
technical problems and it is just a matter of sharing those with
the south. Actually, there is a lot of expertise, as we have heard
today, in utilities within the south. Public-public partnerships
could really look to disseminate that, and after all it is southern
utilities that are currently tackling these problems on a day-to-day
basis, looking at how to get water into shanty towns or peri-urban
areas or slums.
Q181 Chairman: Are you saying that
DFID, for example, could usefully pay for people to get together
or go from one place to another to gain experience and bring it
back to their own areas?
Ms Cann: I think that is absolutely
right, and, in line with other partnerships, there is no barrier
on the exchange of expertise within those partnerships. There
is no barrier to somebody from Brazil not to go to Bolivia, say,
to share expertise. There is no control on that, there is no barrier
to prevent them from sharing as much expertise as they possibly
can.
Mr Miranda: Public operators are
not in competition.
Ms Cann: Absolutely, so the scope
for these partnerships is pretty wide. As Antonio said, they can
deal with the technical issues but also some of the institutional
issues and the formal processes and democratisation and how to
become more accountable and more transparent.
Q182 Chairman: But presumably there
could be technical exchange; in other words you could send an
agency from a public utility to a private company to gain technical
expertise. That presumably would not be regarded as an ideological
hang-up, just the transfer of information and technology, providing
it was done on a good governance basis, if you like.
Ms Cann: I think the essence has
to be not-for-profit. This is very much where WDM is coming from
because we have had our interaction about the role of privatisation
and the role of the public sector, but what we are about is, is
our aid doing the right job? If you look out there, for the last
15 years we have had a push for privatisation. We have seen real
attempts to get the private sector to deliver money, to deliver
management, and there is a whole set of aid, infrastructure and
architecture out there to support that as well as the political
support that is coming through conditionality. The question that
we are asking ourselves in WDM is has that aid infrastructure
really delivered? Has the private sector, with all the help that
it has been given, really delivered, and where is the support
actually for the public sector in terms of capacity building and
finance? As Antonio was saying, the public sector is essentially
in the driving seat in terms of the MDGs. Is there not more that
we could be doing to create essentially a level playing-field
for public and private operators out there, so if there is a developing
country that perhaps is under pressure to privatise, recognises
it has got problems with its utility and actually would like to
look at options that do not involve the private sector, is there
somewhere that utility could go for advice and expertise? At the
moment unfortunately there is not and I think there is a real
role for donors in, at the minimum, levelling that playing-field
and really offering developing countries a meaningful choice.
Q183 Chairman: That is helpful, all
this and all that the other evidence sessions have suggested.
The privatisation issue, to be honest, has calmed down quite a
lot and 90% of the delivery of the MDGs is really through the
public sector, so it is a marginal argument at best although it
still has a little bit of kick. I think John Battle's question
about contractual relationships, also the sharing of information
between public utilities and the role that DFID can play in that,
is interesting for us to explore and I think your evidence has
been really helpful in pushing us further down that track, so
thank you very much indeed for coming.
Mr Miranda: If I may, sir, I will
leave with the secretariat copies of the Compendium of Actions
which are not anything else other than to raise the main actions
that we should take to ensure completion of the MDGs.
Chairman: We thank you for that, and
to all three of you and, as I said to the other witnesses, if
anything occurs to you that you think would be helpful in terms
of what we should recommend to DFID over the next few weeks while
we are still considering our report, we would be very happy to
hear further from you.
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