Karen Bennetzen Bennetzen itibaren Djeregbe, Benin itibaren Djeregbe, Benin

I have to say that this was a disappointment. The authors throw around a lot of numbers and information about the topic itself and the private companies involved. Still, when it comes to giving more insight on how these things came to be and work on the inside, the book falls flat. The writers have a strong opinion on this topic, which in itself is nota bad thing, but it also finds it way into the writing and arguing. There are too many points that were only argued from one point of view or flat out made little sense. The most glaring one being that the author mention that the private water suppliers raise prices, but on the other hand also are responsible for increased water consumption. That is not intuitive and this paradox is never explained (besides the fact that “in order to make more profit, companies have to sell more of there products”…that is wrong they can also raise the prices…or reach more costumers and at the same time decrease the per-person-consumption). Anyway, further the author makes use of the over-exhausted WTO-WB-IMF arguments. In some way the book is the same old anti-globalization debate lacking some depth on the specific topic. Another problem is the credibility of the author. Look, in general I support the author in being suspicious about the privatization of the water sector, but I want credible accounts and not cheer for manufactured arguments with a clear bias. As soon as the first chapter the authors are about to lose a part of that credibility, when they state that “there are no more doubts by experts that humans are responsible for the climate change”. Most informed people know that this is not the case. They are still enough assuming it might be a natural process to render this non-unanimous. Why can the authors not simply say that the majority of experts hold that opinion? Why taint your credibility for a rather casual argument left from the main subject? Now I have to assume that situation as described might be precarious but not (nearly) as bad as preached by the authors. I just could not trust these numbers anymore and some other points made by the author. Not to mention that now as the book is a bit dated, the situation must have been a lot worse than it seems as it was as described back then. Not all is bad though. I liked the non-anti-globalization and anti-privatization parts, especially the early chapters on how the natural water cycle works and how we are about to do harm to it. Still I would assume there are more objective books on the market about this important subject.

this is a beautifully written book full of artful writing.