IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Waar: CREA Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 170, Amsterdam, Netherlands (GPS lat: 52.363278 lon: 4.912871)
Wanneer: 22/03/2012 - 20:00 t/m 22/03/2012 - 22:00

Those who oppose the privatisation of public services are often confronted with the objection of 'no alternative'. However over the last decade, initiatives around the world to democratise public services and ensure equal access for all, resulted in interesting successful alternatives in practice. Two new books, co-published by TNI and the Municipal Services Project, show a wide range of alternatives in the form of successful, non-commercialised public services in health, water, sanitation and electricity.

Book Launch: Alternatives to privatisation – public services for the future
March 22, 20.00h.
CREA, Nieuwe Achtergracht 170 Amsterdam

Those who oppose the privatisation of public services are often confronted with the objection of 'no alternative'. However over the last decade, initiatives around the world to democratise public services and ensure equal access for all, resulted in interesting successful alternatives in practice. Two new books, co-published by TNI and the Municipal Services Project, show a wide range of alternatives in the form of successful, non-commercialised public services in health, water, sanitation and electricity.

We will hear from four speakers - each dedicated activists and researchers in the field of public services and democracy - about these revolutionary initiatives (documented in the two books, described below). What works? what doesn't? And how are communities resisting the neoliberal ideology which has failed to deliver on peoples' basic human rights?

Moderated by Tuur Elzinga, SP Senator and trailblazer new trade union movement in the Netherlands.
• David McDonald (Professor of Global Development Studies at Queen's University, Canada, and co-director of the Municipal Services Project)
• Hilary Wainwright (Editor of Red Pepper magazine in the UK, TNI Fellow and Senior Research Associate at International Centre for Participation Studies, Bradford University ; author of Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy, 2003).
• Daniel Chavez (TNI Fellow and anthropologist from Uruguay specialising in Latin American politics and urban social and political movements; co-author of "The New Latin American Left" (Pluto Press, 2009)
• Martin Pigeon (researcher working on water and agribusiness issues at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)).

No need to register. For more info contact Hilde van der Pas (hildevanderpas@tni.org).

Books

Alternatives to Privatisation: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South (2012)
provides a global survey of alternatives to privatisation, a rigorous evaluation of different models of public service delivery based on data from over 40 countries. The book provides a unique insight into what kind of public models work, how transferable they are from one place to another and what their main strengths and weaknesses are. The book also explores the role of labour and trade unions in developing alternatives to privatisation, through democratising and improving public services. Co-edited by David McDonald and Greg Ruiters, published by Routledge.

The book Remunicipalisation - Putting water back into public hands (2012)
features in-depth case studies of cities from around the world that experienced dramatic failures with water privatization and took back control of their municipal water services. This process of ‘remunicipalising’ water is a new and exciting global trend that recognises the universal right to water and sanitation, while also a providing a fascinating case of participatory democracy in action.