Feria Internacional del Agua, tenth anniversary of Cochabamba Water War, Bolivia ©Kris Krug, 2010

Public options for essential services

Privatization has failed to provide equitable and sustainable services in water, health and electricity. There are alternatives to commercialized models. Learn
more >>

Informal settlement with makeshift electricity provision in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa ©David McDonald

Building better analytical tools

We develop new concepts and research methods in the study of alternatives to privatization to advocate for policy change. Learn more >>

Mothers waiting to get babies weighed at community growth monitoring point, Zambia ©Idah Zulu 2009 in EQUINET's Keeping an Eye on Equity

Global network for alternative solutions

We unite researchers, activists and practitioners engaged in service delivery debates in Africa, Asia and Latin America from the grassroots to the policy level. Learn more >>

What's New

May 23, 2012
Ottawa Book Launch. David McDonald & Maude Barlow will present the new books "Alternatives to Privatization: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South" and "Remunicipalization: Putting Water Back Into Public Hands" on May 23 at PSAC, James K. Wyllie room, 223 Gilmour St, Ottawa. Please RSVP at msp@queensu.ca if you'd like to join us!
May 3, 2012
New Occasional Paper!. We are releasing the new study The Cupboard is Full: Public Finance for Public Services in the Global South that shows how public capital accumulating in Public Pension Funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds worldwide could be used toward closing the global basic services gap. Read the IPS News feature story on this research
Read More News

Latest Blog Post

May 7, 2012
Public Funds for a Cause. I’d known for some time that some public pension funds had been investing in privatized services but I hadn’t realized how pervasive it was or what the potential was to do something more progressive with this money. And we are talking about trillions of dollars generated by public sector employees and employers, and money produced from natural resources or trade surpluses in the case of sovereign wealth funds. A mere 1% of such funds' current assets could generate $100 billion to kick-start an ‘infrastructure bank’ that could finance basic public services worldwide.
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