ABSTRACT
Although water privatization was seriously considered in the City of Harare, Zimbabwe, in the late 1990s it was effectively stillborn due to the political and economic crises that have plagued the city since 1997. Recommendations in 1996 by a German firm of water engineering consultants, GKW, funded by the African Development Bank (ADB), laid out a plan for corporatizing the city’s water and sanitation services and recommended a major expansion of the city’s water supply through the construction of a new dam (Kunzwi) to deal with what was argued to be looming water shortages in Harare. Water multinational Biwater jumped at this opportunity and proposed a far-reaching Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) scheme, but the proposal – and the debates around it – were kept largely secret and only collapsed when the city was plunged into deeper political crisis in 1998. Efforts since that time by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to resuscitate the GKW proposals have been unsuccessful as well, as the city stumbles from one crisis to another.
