Contesting and Co-Producing the Right to Water in Peri-Urban Cochabamba

Abstract

The Bolivian government played a key role in developing and presenting the Human Right to Water to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). However, nationally water policies and institutions designed to realise the right to water have struggled to engage with a highly fragmented and informal water sector. 46 % of the residents in the city of Cochabamba rely on informal water providers. There are around 600 community water providers across the municipality, many of which experience serious practical and institutional challenges. Meanwhile, the poorest households and communities in the city continue to rely on expensive vendors. Drawing on research undertaken between 2010 and 2015, this chapter explores how community water providers in Cochabamba engaged with reforms around the right to water, and have sought to engage with the state and to develop co-production partnerships as a means of improving water services to low-income urban neighbourhoods.