win/2006/in focus/news room

20 August 2006

WIN: Keeping corruption out of your water

World water gets integrity treatment

Introduction
How corruption spoils your water
How WIN seeks victory over corruption

Press Release: Keeping water clean: First sector-initiated coalition forms to fight corruption

Transparency International’s water work around the world
Selected Press Releases
Selected links
Selected readings
News coverage

Media contacts

Introduction

Water is the quencher of thirst, a grower of crops, a conductor of electricity, a component of sustainable development and simply a natural resource that is vital for our basic existence. It is also a source of much concern about our environment and of innumerable disputes concerning water rights. One tainting element running through water, regardless of its source or destination, is corruption.

The Water Integrity Network (WIN) is a coalition of six leading organisations that have joined forces to cleanse water of corruption. The urgency of the corruption challenge is echoed in the recently issued United Nations report on water and development, which cites corruption as the primary reason why clean drinking water remains unobtainable for 1.1 billion people, noting that up to 40 percent of water goes unaccounted for.

Beyond direct human suffering, corruption intensifies the world’s regional water scarcities. It promotes the excessive withdrawal from surface and underground water sources, pollutes freshwater resources, encourages inefficient freshwater use and undermines sustainability. A lack of transparency hinders well-qualified contracting and ethical operation in the water sector, and it undermines the financial stability of water utilities and thus their ability to offer reliable service to all their clients and to extend services to all citizens.

How corruption spoils your water

Corruption hurts the water sector and thus the poor by limiting the expansion and effective delivery of water supply and sanitation services as well as the overall management of water resources. It hurts the poor by diverting investments that would benefit them.

Corruption forces citizens to pay bribes to connect to water pipes or tankers. It helps to inflate the cost of needed small-scale infrastructure and diverts irrigated water away from poor villages. As in other areas where corruption is present, it leads to biased decisions on the allocation and location of water supplies, wastewater treatment facilities, service points and pipe systems.

Falsified meter readings by paid-off readers, ill-advised procurement of expensive but poorly constructed facilities and bought directorships are further examples of corrupt behaviour.

As a result, citizens and especially the poor, suffer from increased water expenses, limited or denied access to services, lost dignity, poor health and eroded democracy and social equity.

How WIN seeks victory over corruption

The WIN promotes solutions-oriented action and coalition-building between civil society, the public and private sectors, media and governments. Through diagnosis, advocacy, capacity-building and monitoring, WIN plans to raise awareness and deeper understanding of corruption that will lead to further action and solutions.

Promoting good governance and transparency to root out this unethical behaviour in the water sector won’t be easy. Long ignored, and wilfully overlooked by some, corruption is only now being seriously confronted. Fortunately, anti-corruption measures exist. Learning from other broader sectoral reform efforts, the water sector can test their applicability and tailor them where appropriate.

Some examples:

Communities can learn to monitor services and construction
Transparency and access to information in communities and utilities can be developed
The water sector itself can reform its public institutions and regulatory and financial arrangements to promote more ethical behaviour

The Water Integrity Network was founded by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Swedish Water House (SWH), Transparency International (TI) and the Water and Sanitation Program-Africa (WSP). AquaFed, the International Federation of Private Water Operators, has recently joined the Network and WIN remains open to new members from the public and private sector who want to rid the water industry of corruption. Transparency International serves as the Secretariat for the WIN.

Transparency International’s water work around the world

Irin

Argentina

In 2005, TI facilitated a regional workshop that convened the chief executives of major private multinational water pipe producers operating in Latin America to discuss integrity risks specific to the sector. Poder Ciudadano the TI chapter in Argentina then carried out a six-month participatory process to design a sectoral agreement that was signed by nine pre-eminent firms from Argentina’s water infrastructure sector, in effect committing to a no-bribery policy.

For more information, click here (in Spanish).
Read more about the Business Sector Agreements (in Spanish).
Read the press release: Leading Argentinean water-sector companies say no to bribery

Colombia

TI national chapter Transparencia por Colombia designed a pioneering methodology based on TI’s Business Principles for Countering Bribery to demonstrate that bribery does not have to be an inherent part of doing business. As a result, in spring 2005 leading national and international companies in Colombia’s water sector signed an anti-bribery agreement.

For more information, please click here (in Spanish).
Case study on this agreement
Download a case study on how to design and apply a Business Sector Agreement.

Kenya

TI Kenya produced a pilot survey seeking information regarding corruption in water services delivery in the city of Nairobi. The survey revealed that nearly two-thirds of respondents had a corruption-related experience within the last five years involving water services.

Download the report here:
Kenya_Water_Survey.pdf 984.01 kB
For more information see TI Kenya's website.

Mexico

Transparencia Mexicana, TI’s national chapter, completed 15 Integrity Pacts (IPs) between 2001 and March 2005 and had another 12 ongoing. By following the same principles as the TI Integrity Pact, the Mexican IP has built in an additional feature to increase citizen participation in the contracting award process. This is the use of a ‘social witness (testigo social)’ to oversee the contracting process. The social witness is selected by Transparencia Mexicana and must be an independent and respected technical expert in the field. At the request of the relevant contracting agencies, Transparencia Mexicana has arranged for the hiring of social witnesses in projects in the water sector.

For more information, please click here (in Spanish).
Download the report on related activities by Transparencia Mexicana :
Mexico Water Project.pdf 9.04 kB
Read about an Integrity Pact on the Operation of a Wastewater Treatment Plant under the responsibility of the Municipality of Saltillo "Servicios de Saneamiento Integral de Aguas Residuales del Municipio de Saltillo"

Pakistan

An Integrity Pact agreement was signed between the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board and Transparency International Pakistan in relation to the awarding of contracts for a major water project in the city. As a result a clean and open bidding process, monitored by TI, took place, saving the Karachi water entity more than US$ 3.1 million. This dramatic result emerged directly after the introduction of the no-bribes TI Integrity Pact.

For more information please click here.

Paraguay

Transparencia Paraguay is monitoring the public contracting process and raising awareness of corruption in construction of the bi-national Yacyretá Hydroelectric Project on the Paraná River, which forms part of the border between Paraguay and Argentina.

For more information please click here.

Selected Press Releases

22 August 2006: Aquafed supports the integrity and anti-corruption drive (in English / en français)

17 March 2006: Transparency vital to keeping water sector free of corruption

15 December 2005: Leading Argentinean water-sector companies say no to bribery

06 August 1999: International construction companies bribe top official in large dam project for South Africa: Scandal highlights urgency of implementing OECD Convention Against International Corruption

En español:

15 de diciembre del 2006: Empresas líderes argentinas del sector de conducción de agua dicen ¡NO AL SOBORNO! Empresas firman primer acuerdo sectorial en contra de la corrupción en Argentina

Selected Links

Selected readings

Tackling corruption in the water and sanitation sector in Africa, Janelle Plummer and Piers Cross (2006)

World Water Week 2006, 14 August 2006, Press Release and background information, SIWI

UN World Water Development Report 2006

“Anti-corruption efforts in the post-tsunami reconstruction of water and sanitation infrastructure and services in Aceh, Indonesia”, Janelle Plummer, prepared for the Anti-Corruption Seminar held at World Water Week in Stockholm, August 2005.

Seminar at the World Water Week 2005: "Can we meet international water targets without fighting corruption?"

Transparency International, Regional Workshop: "Fortaleciendo la transparencia y la integridad en el sector de conducción de agua en America Latina", Buenos Aires, 16 June 2006

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