Paper short abstract:

Empirically-grounded research paper focusing on the role SSIPs had in shaping Maputo’s current peri-urban water governance model; and on how the inherently political and economic consequences of the water access modalities it produced affect the citizens/consumers of the capital’s poorest areas.

Paper long abstract:

The paper focuses on a contemporary issue affecting Maputo which relates to the proliferation of informal water businesses, the process of their inclusion into the legal framework of the water sector and how these have transformed the political landscape of access to water. As a common trait of other African peri-urban areas, the emergence of small-scale informal providers (SSIPs) here derived from the need to compensate for a void left by the state in infrastructure and basic service provision. Evidence from a review of the past ten years shows that the prevalence of such agents completely altered the flows of power within the urban water governance model, proving to be a key component of the sector's reform initiated in 2007. Since then the government has attempted to create opportunities to engage and include the SSIPS in the official frame through the provision of licenses and partnerships. Public recognition of their social value allowed SSIPs to accumulate some a certain degree of interventional power (capitalised by the concerted action of two SSIPs Associations). The paper thus reviews the governance model's evolution and the role of the stakeholders involved. It also analyses in which ways the political, social and economic dynamics of this institutional framework might have affected citizens' (or consumers?) everyday experiences with the provision of water as a 'public' service. The research is based in two fieldwork trips, semi-structured interviews, published and unpublished reports from several organisations, local conferences and governmental workshops.