Cochabamba Water War: Analysis, Recommendations, and Future Steps

This report examines the Cochabamba Water War, analyzing the conflict's origins, the impact of privatization, and the roles of various stakeholders. It critically assesses the outcomes of the protests and the re-nationalization of SEMAPA, exploring the beneficiaries and those who suffered. The report poses critical questions about government, corporate, and international financial institution policies, emphasizing the importance of consultation and stakeholder engagement to prevent similar conflicts. It delves into the fundamental queries of essential service privatization, specifically water, and proposes recommendations for water management, community involvement, and the roles of NGOs and international cooperation agencies. The report underscores the need for alternative systems to privatization and the importance of public-oriented regulation to protect marginalized populations from exploitative practices. The author provides a comprehensive analysis of the conflict, the key issues, and recommends a path forward for sustainable water management and social justice.

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COCHABAMBA 1
Recommendation: What Should Be Done Next In Cochabamba
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Institution

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Recommendation: What Should Be Done Next In Cochabamba
The case of Cochabamba might denote a victory in minds of the local individuals,
however, from the viewpoint of the outsider, it appears like a slight hollow victory, and 1 which
was accomplished at a huge cost (Shiva, 2016). The areas that require recommendation and
consideration will be highlighted in this paper on question-based format. The question one must
raise is what was really accomplished via the protest, apart from ideological victory. Who were
the beneficiaries as a consequent of SEMAPA re-nationalization, and who has agonized? Will
the novel board be capable to undertake the better management of the municipal water, grow the
system as well as decrease the widespread inequalities? Were, further protest essential
considering rates on water had be reverted by February? Was the seventeen-year old boy’s death
justifiable price to pay for winning water wars?
Provided that a great portion of conflict seems to have emerged from inadequate
consultation, a critical question is how governments might, corporations together with
international financial institutions alter their policies to effectively accommodate the wishes of
each stakeholder? Howe might the Cochabamba story be evaded in the coming years?
Furthermore, what degree of responsibility do such parties bear for what took place in
Cochabamba? Is AdT entitled to compensation from community which could not afford to
purchase their water? Should government of Bolivia pay reparations for burdening municipality
with Misicuni project? Do the Cochabamba citizens, having propelled out multinationals, still
deserve support? Finally, should the IMF and World Bank be held accountable for fallout
resulting from their prescribed policies?
The Cochabamba case, in a more general manner, further raises fundamental queries of
privatization of necessary (basic) services. Water has been declared by La Coordinadora’s

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statement (Cochabamba Declaration) as a fundamental human right and the public trust has to be
guarded by each level of government following dispute with AdT. Thus, it water must never be
commodified, privatized or even traded for commercial purposes. Water must stay a common
good, and needs to be managed by the community. Water has also been enshrined by UN
committee on Economic, Culture and Social Rights as a basic human right. The critical query is
who shall pay for water? Moreover, if there is lack of adequate water to go around, how will
water be distributed? And where the community management ever collapses, who will take over
the responsibility?
Privatization is absolutely never the sole alternative, and unquestionably never the best
option in each case. However, where water is never privatized, how can SEMAPAs of the world
enhance their services? Most significantly, should water consumers’ be compelled to pay full
cost of water services? Do subsidies adopted merely dissuade conservation, or are they essential
to accomplish the equitable system? Conversely, where delivery of water is privatized, how can
the management of interests of community alongside corporation be done? Is efficiency the
major objective or is equitability more significant in delivering something as fundamental to life
as water? How can corporation remain accountable to citizens, and how can community ever
trust corporations? Where private water firms do offer a valuable service, what degree of profit
should companies be entitled to as their reward?
Naturally getting answers to the above questions forms the recommendations though they
are no easy responses. Cochabamba is a typical case of supreme significance of consultation as
well as engagement of each stakeholder, however, it leaves service’ privatization as an open
question (Assies, 2003). Many have argued that only time shall tell whether the Cochabamba’s

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citizens will be able to find an option solution to their corresponding problems which satisfies
the interest for everyone.
The formation of Water Committees should be given much attention since it will help
take up the void left by lack of effective political decision that can guarantee water supply. The
Committee will gather important knowledge on management of water resources, climatology as
well as emergency response activities. Such knowledge will be effective when then transmitted
to community to create a sound awareness as well as promoting water culture. This will continue
to permit a novel route for recovery of process to water in both sustainable and participatory
means. Such projects as “We Are Water Foundation” in Bolivia needs to be given attention and
space to do their work to combat the water crisis and lack of sanitation in Bolivia.
The communitarian water associations can leverage progressive forms of organization to
enhance water service delivery and hence the removal of hindrances that lie outdoor their control
including lack of government intervention and regulation make private water vendors that
exploits the city’s unequal distribution of water resource for profit are required. Also, small-scale
water businesses can exploit failures of formal public or state as well as informal
communitarians system when allowed to position themselves as the essential operation, in a
manner that restraints the ability of state to regulate their activities.
Attention and space should as well be given to the NGOs alongside international
cooperation agencies. They have been instrumental in the provision of technical and financial
assistance for the domestic water organization in Cochabamba and hence play a critical role in
waterscape in the City (Olivera & Lewis, 2004). These NGOs and Agencies will help in the
development of technical solutions as well as capacity building and focus on activism and
community.

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In conclusion, alternatives systems to privatization should be given preferences
categorized as market-based or communitarian. The government must never allow the continual
of waterscape in the City to be controlled and manipulated by elite who are only concerned with
furthering their individual interests (supply and profits), at the poor and water-poor expenses as
well as to the detriment of the hydrological resources of the City based on quality and supply to
ease the tension between residents, public utility SEMAPA as well as state (Crabtree, 2005).
This should be done by having the state engaging in public-oriented regulation of the private
extraction as well as sale of water towards the protection of marginalized population from
contaminated water supplies, exploitative prices as well as precarious deliver of service.

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References
Assies, W. (2003). David versus Goliath in Cochabamba: water rights, neoliberalism, and the
revival of social protest in Bolivia. Latin American Perspectives, 30(3), 14-36.
Crabtree, J. (2005). Patterns of Protest: politics and social movements in Bolivia (Vol. 4). Latin
America Bureau.
Olivera, O., & Lewis, T. (2004). Cochabamba!: water war in Bolivia. South End Press.
Shiva, V. (2016). Water wars: Privatization, pollution, and profit. North Atlantic Books.