Who are the most important actors that promote water privatisation?
The IMF and a whole range of multilateral development banks, as well as specialized agencies such as the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), but also donor governments, most prominently the UK and France. Also very significant are international think-tanks such as the World Water Council and the Global Water Partnership, not to mention the water multinationals themselves (first and foremost Suez and Veolia) and their lobby groups (such as AquaFed). What is PPIAF and how does it operate? The PPIAF is a multi-donor agency under the wings of the World Bank. It was established in 1999 with the exclusive mission to promote privatisation of water and other infrastructure services in developing countries. The PPIAF’s budget is fairly small compared to the World Bank as a whole, but it is spent very strategically on consultants developing exact recommendations for the form of privatisation to be promoted in a given city or country. And the context of policy conditionalitie
