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Maxima's pipe dream
Privatisation of Bolivia’s water supply has left Maxima high and dry

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Maxima Cari
Age: 26
Home: El Alto, Bolivia
When Maxima was growing up her house had clean running water. But now she lives in El Alto, the fastest-growing shantytown in Bolivia. Here, she digs her own well for drinking water and digs another hole for sewage. She tries desperately – often unsuccessfully - to stop the two waters mixing underground.

She can’t afford the $445 connection fee the water company demands, let alone the water bills. The monthly charge for water has risen 35% since the government privatised Bolivia’s water supply – a condition of a 1997 loan from the World Bank.
Filed in: Latin America & the Caribbean, Trade

Tapping into Bolivia’s water supply

Bolivia’s water supply is controlled by Aguas de Illimani, owned by a consortium led by French giant Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux de France
Despite assuring Bolivians that privatisation would mean greater access to water, Aguas de Illimani has failed to expand the aging water system, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without access to safe drinking water
Most people in El Alto are rural migrants without steady jobs – it’s inconceivable that they could pay the $445 connection fee, more than six months’ income for someone on the national minimum wage
If this was in the UK, it would be like paying a £9,000 connection fee if you earned £21,000 a year
In January 2006, Evo Morales became Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president. He has said that the privatisation of basic services should be reversed

Bolivia

Bolivia
population: 8.8 million
population living on less than $2 a day: 34%
population without access to sewage system: 55%

Filed in: Latin America & the Caribbean, Trade