The new players in global water

Overview

Investor interest in water privatisation – seen in the mid-1990s as the best means of providing water supply and wastewater services to burgeoning urban populations in emerging markets – dried up after the 1998 Asian financial crisis bankrupted several showpiece projects. And when political opposition and popular protests delayed or even reversed water privatisations in Latin America and elsewhere, the water industry’s dominant players responded by becoming much more selective about...