Cooperatives: an alternative to water privatization in Greece

Public Works Management & Policy, 2017

There are several ways of arranging rural water supply. One of these is through water cooperatives that have been established to provide water supply, irrigation, and/or sewerage services. Water cooperatives are found in developed countries such as Finland, Denmark, Austria, Canada, and United States, and in developing countries in South America, such as Bolivia and Chile. Water cooperatives or their equivalent organizations that exist in Kenya are called self-help water projects. Yet, surprisingly little attention has been paid to this option even in countries with rich tradition of cooperatives in other sectors. In this study, Finland and Kenya were selected for a comparative analysis of the identified features of water cooperatives. Best practices observed in the features with differences could be shared between the two countries.

Finland has a long tradition of organising water services through co-operatives, especially in rural areas but also in bigger townships. Currently there are some 1400 water co-operatives in the country providing water supply and increasingly also sewerage services. From the late 1800s to the early 2000s five development phases can be identified in the history of water co-operatives. This article discusses the general characteristics, diversity and main stakeholders of water co-operatives. It argues that water co-operatives have great potential especially in the rural areas of developing and transition economies.

Water Resources Management, 2011

The scope of this paper is to investigate the Greek ‘path’ to water privatization and its possible interconnections with the ongoing restructuring of the water sector on an EU and a global level. The paper starts with a contemporary, spatially-sensitive analysis of the expanding role of water multinationals, by focusing on water supply operators of the southern EU. Afterwards, it highlights the peculiarities of the ‘Greek path’ to private sector participation by studying the two most important Greek water companies, in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki respectively. As found, these companies have partially, though successfully, been transformed according to the rules of the ‘market-environmentalist’ paradigm. The state drives the privatization effort, while at the same time, insufficiently regulates the activity of both companies. Based on the Greek case, the paper discusses whether the analytical tools offered by a critical approach, the ‘accumulation-by-dispossession’ thesis, can better interpret changes in water companies of the ‘advanced-South’.

2011

This paper presents a study on the provision of drinking water in Argentina by cooperative enterprises. This work analyzes an alternative cooperative as an example of integrated, participatory and equitable management of water. The methodology used is the method of ...

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2020

Cooperation and in addition the creation of cooperatives and cooperative companies in the agricultural sector influence the effort of small farmers to survive in conditions of increased competition. Farmers are in many cases considered "small" entrepreneurs compared to their counterparts in other sectors of the economy. Therefore, the need for survival leads most of the farmers to unite in order to gain bargaining power. Agricultural cooperatives were and remain the only mechanism for gaining bargaining power of small and weak producers, which is the main reason for creating cooperatives. Due to their historical process, we can understand their role in the development of the Greek economy. Finally, the study of their problems in last year’s presents the need for the planning of a modernized cooperative model, based on the most important principles of social economy.

International Journal of Corporate Finance and Accounting

The severe Greek economic crisis has created several financial and social challenges. The rise in unemployment had a consequence that a significant percentage of city-dwellers had to leave their homes mostly in Athens and continue their life in rural areas of Greece. Small agricultural holdings that were inherited and never utilized in the years of economic prosperity are now utilized. New business structures have emerged to tackle unemployment and the loss of income. As a result, the first new generation cooperative (NGC) named Efkarpon was established in Karditsa, Greece, in 2012. It is a vertically integrated cooperative, which uses innovation in production and processing of superfood fruits. Factor analysis and SWOT analysis are used to specify the cooperative potentials and manage members' expectations. The results reveal that the members joined in the Efkarpon mostly because they liked the innovative attributes of the effort and recognized entrepreneurial opportunities in ...

European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2017

The privatization of water services is a basic conditionality in the structural adjustment programs imposed by international financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, on indebted countries. In the same sense, the financial assistance that has been offered to Greece from Troika, since the beginning of the financial crisis, in the late 2009, was accompanied by the commitment, to privatize, among others, the two largest public water companies. The consequences of water privatization policies include increases in prices, poor quality of services, little or no investment, rise of income inequality, high levels of corruption, loss of jobs and deterioration of working conditions. Despite the fact that privatization of water supply companies has been proven to be ineffective in many parts of the world and the tendency towards the remunicipalization of water services that has lately been detected, international financial organizations continue to set water privatization as conditionality. The unconstitutionality of the policy and the strong opposition of citizens and unions to water privatization seem to be inefficient to prevent the Greek government to proceed to the establishment of a public-private partnership in the water supply sector.

Dursun Yıldız Halis Uysal President of the Hydropolitics Association, Irrigation Cooperatives Central Union President, [email protected] [email protected], ABSTRACT Currently, the priority issue of water resources management is to meet the increasing demand for water with limited water resources. This issue is emerging as a bigger problem on average 75% of the water used in irrigation areas in the world. Studies worldwide reveals that due to the lack of better management of water resources, water problems and errors. Participatory water management is the most important of these shortcomings is the lack of transparency and carried out in a sustainable approach. Water management in our country is experiencing as a legal and institutional restructuring period. Prepared new Water Act will be discussed in Parliament in the coming period. This restructuring was realized that there has not been adequately integrated into the participatory water management approach. In Turkey's freshwater resources due to climate change has become more strategic importance. In this context, the strategic importance of our groundwater resources is increasing rapidly. Legally, very big part of our pop-use groundwater sources is operated by the irrigation cooperatives. In particular the maximum amount of water consumed in irrigation, sustainable management of water issues in the more recent period stands out. It plays the most important role in water management, irrigation associations and irrigation cooperatives. 27 Regional Association with 1.8 million farmers and 2500 Irrigation Cooperative Irrigation, by the Cooperatives Central Union of Turkey hosting in our country, it is one of farmer organizations will be most effective in the sustainable use of water. Since the beginning of 1970 Groundwater cooperatives reached 482 275 hectares of irrigated area. 73% of irrigated land is irrigated with groundwater in our country by the Cooperative. This shows us the importance of cooperatives for managing sustainable water in this area. This article describes the current state of Irrigation Cooperatives, problems with water management in the structure of Turkey is examined by renewed problems will arise neglect of these cooperatives. The most important results achieved by the end of this review; In case the draft law to be enacted in such a way that the water is primarily one of the most fundamental aspects of the EU Water Framework Directive "Participation" principle will not occur. Other results using our groundwater resources, "Irrigation Cooperatives" is the representation of a basin management, "sustainable water management" has not realized the truth.

The paper is part of an extensive research project about the new tendencies on privatization of water services and supplies in Iran, focusing on the case of City of Yazd which has encountered with drought and water-supply difficulties. Assessing appropriate approaches of contracting out the public services, this article studies potential rational outcomes of privatization in an institutional economic context. Although water-related issues are highly influenced by climate changes, there are always various mismanagements of human kind in local scale which totally affects the natural water cycle and water accessibility. Based on interviews and primary documents, the paper strives to provide an overview of actors and sectional decision-makers on water services, to explore the new trends of public-private partnerships in the city, and to find the vulnerabilities and potential risks in this new proposed system. Finally, the article briefly points to several resilient approaches on this system and adaptive management strategies. Key words: Public Private Partnership, Water Governance, Resiliency Theory, Adaptive Management, Institutional Economies.

Water

While access to drinking water has expanded worldwide, safely managed provision is still a challenge, and rural areas are specially underserved. To provide safe drinking water for these areas, water scholars and international organizations have advocated for community-based organizations or coproduction schemes. The literature often mentions that institutions and people play a key role in the provision of drinking water although the specific mechanisms through which they may affect the process of maintaining good quality water have not been reported yet. The article aims to fill this gap by providing a complex, local view on this process. In Chile, from 1960 onwards, the State has implemented cooperatives to provide for drinking water in rural and small-town areas under a coproduction scheme. In this scheme, the State provides the infrastructure, and the community is responsible for service provision. We analysed the water quality of six of these cooperatives and conducted interview...