water privatization in the late 20th century are those undertaken in england under margaret thatcher, the manila and buenos aires concessions as well as the failed privatization in cochabamba, bolivia, which became a symbol of the struggle against globalization. less well known, but just as relevant, are water privatizations in other countries, such as in colombia. france private water firms have had a dominant role in france for more than a century. private water firms (veolia water, suez environnement and smaller peers such as saur) control 60 percent of france's water market. veolia and suez are the world's largest private international water and wastewater firms. water privatization in france has been going on from before the 1800s but only recently, around the 1960s, has it grown in size and power. in the 20 years between the 1950s and 1970s it is estimated that the private water sector increased its share of potable water supply by at least 20%, a figure that has increased to around 75% in the current present. the water supply is now owned by three major companies. in the 3600 local municipalities in france each of them has the power to decide whether or not they publicize or privatize drinking water and dictate the terms of the contract. the funding of french water agencies is completely done in by themselves. meaning that these companies are self-funded. the total revenue is hard to estimate but from 1992 to 1996 around 81 billion french francs were held in revenue by these water agencies. this large fund is mostly used to expand and maintain public and private water projects. this model, although very profitable, lacks economic regulation due to poor logistics. this is a problem which is in the process of being fixed by implementing a clear and well-defined contract between the water agencies and the contractors who build the infrastructure. england and wales in england and wales, water tariffs and profits increased substantially after privatization in 1989, but investments also increased and water quality in rivers improved. tariffs increased by 46% in inflation-adjusted terms during the first nine years after privatization. operating profits have more than doubled (+142%) in the first eight years. on the other hand, privatization increased investments: in the six years after privatization the companies invested £17 billion, compared to £9.3 billion in the six years before privatization. it also brought about compliance with stringent drinking water standards and led to a higher quality of river water. according to data from ofwat, the economic regulator of water and sewer companies in england and wales, from the early 1990s until 2010, network pressure has improved substantially, supply interruptions have become less frequent, the responsiveness to complaints has improved and leakage has been reduced. in the 1980s the elite largely believed that the state was not building infrastructure for water in a manner that would allow the economy to grow appropriately. for this reason, the economic and political powerful spearhead a shift towards making water a privately owned utility. recently, the entire privatized water systems have been undergoing a complete restructuring. small water companies in the uk have also been purchased by multinational companies from the united states, france and scotland. the privately owned companies have been found to have trouble with water quality, environment pollution, sewage management, leakage and logistical errors. manila, the philippines the private companies providing water in manila have expanded access of water supply to the poor living in slums. water privatization in manila began in 1997 with the award of two concession contracts for the eastern and western halves of metro manila. the concessions represent the largest population served by private operators in the developing world. as of 2010, the concession in eastern manila is highly successful and has led to significant improvements in access, service quality and efficiency: the population served more than doubled from 3 in 1997 to 6.1 million in 2009, the share of customers with continuous water supply increased from 26% to more than 98% and non-revenue water declined from 63% to 16%. the concession in western manila failed when the company maynilad went bankrupt in 2003. it was sold to new investors in 2007 and performance has improved since then. the share of the population with access to piped water in western manila increased from 67% in 1997 to 86% in 2006 and the share of customers that enjoys 24-hour water supply increased from 32% in 2007 to 71% in early 2011. argentina water privatization in argentina began in 1992 under the government of carlos menem as part of one of the world's largest privatization programs. concessions were signed in 28% of the country's municipalities covering 60% of the population, including in 1993 for the metropolitan area of buenos aires. after the 2001 economic crisis, under the government of néstor kirchner, almost all concessions were terminated, including in buenos aires in 2006. the impact of the concession remains controversial. the government and critics argue that the concessionaire failed to achieve the targets set under the concession contract in terms of expansion of access, investment and service quality. proponents concede that targets were not reached, but argue that a freeze in tariffs at the time of the devaluation of the peso during the argentinian economic crisis in 2001 violated the contract and thus made it impossible to achieve the original targets. according to the argentinian economist sebastian galiani, the public company osn had invested only us$25m per year between 1983 and 1993, while the private concessionaire aguas argentinas increased investments to around us$200m per year between 1993 and 2000. according to the private concessionnaire suez, during the 13-year-duration of its concession it extended access to water to 2 million people and access to sanitation to 1 million people, despite the economic crisis. in july 2010 the international center for the settlement of investment disputes (icsid) ruled that the argentinian government unfairly refused to allow the private concessionaires to raise tariffs during the period after the devaluation of the argentine peso in 2001 and that the private companies are entitled to damages. the private companies announced that they would seek us$1.2bn in damages. cochabamba, bolivia cochabamba was the scene of violent protests against water privatization in 2000. in the mid-1990s the government of bolivia, under pressure from the world bank, decided to privatize water supply in the country's third largest city, cochabamba. in the previous years, despite encumbered funds made available by the world bank to support the public utility of cochabamba, access to piped water in the city had decreased to 40%. water losses had remained high at 40%, and water was supplied only 4 hours a day. those not connected to the network paid ten times as much for their water to private vendors as those who were. this contrasted with the situation in bolivia's second-largest city, santa cruz, where a utility run as a cooperative had managed to increase access and improve service quality with the support of the world bank. in santa cruz, privatization had never been considered. in 1997, a first bid for a water concession in cochabamba had been declared void at the request of the mayor of cochabamba, manfred reyes villa. he wanted the construction of a large dam, the misicuni dam, and a pipeline from the dam to the city to be included in the concession. the world bank had opposed the dam as unnecessarily expensive and subsequently ended its involvement related to water supply in the city. despite this, in the view of the public the world bank remains inseparably linked to the cochabamba privatization. the government proceeded to bid out the concession; this time including the misicuni dam. only a single company submitted a bid, aguas del tunari, a consortium led by bechtel. the government accepted the bid and signed the concession. the consortium was guaranteed a minimum 15% annual return. in parallel, a law was passed that appeared to give a monopoly to aguas del tunari over all water resources, including water used for irrigation, communal water systems and even rainwater collected on roofs. upon taking control the company raised water tariffs by 35%. demonstrations and a general strike erupted in january 2000 in protest against the tariff increase and the perceived privatization of water resources. the government arrested the leader of the protesters, oscar olivera. however, the protests spread to the entire country and the government declared a state of emergency in april. protests still continued and several people were killed. in the midst of the turmoil the employees of aguas del tunari fled from cochabamba. the government finally released oscar olivera and signed an agreement with him stating that the concession would be ended. the government then told aguas del tunari that by leaving cochabamba they had abandoned the concession and parliament revoked law 2029. the cochabamba protests became a worldwide symbol of struggle against neoliberalism and the cochabamba privatization is probably, both among activists against globalization and the general public, by far the best known example of the failure of water privatization. the company, insisting that it had been forced out, filed a $25 million lawsuit in the international centre for settlement of investment disputes. the proceedings, which were held behind closed doors, ended in 2006 with a settlement under which bechtel dropped its claim. with financing from the inter-american development bank the city expanded its piped water system in the aftermath of the riots. nevertheless, under public management half of the 600,000 people of cochabamba remain without piped water and those with it continue to receive intermittent service. oscar olivera the leading figure in the protests admitted, "i would have to say we were not ready to build new alternatives." colombia cartagena is one of the colombian cities whose water supply is provided by a mixed public-private company. between 1996 and 2007, public-private partnerships for water and sewer services in more than 40 colombian cities were entered into, serving more than 20% of the country's urban population. most of the contracts were awarded in municipalities with highly deteriorated infrastructure, such as barranquilla and cartagena. the central government financed most investments through grants, thus reducing the need to increase tariffs. water privatization in colombia was largely homegrown, adapting models used elsewhere to the particular circumstances and culture of colombia. a model introduced from spain, the mixed company with a majority stake by the municipality and a minority stake by a private operator, was particularly successful. foreign water companies won some of the early contracts, but quickly sold a majority of their shares to colombian operators. there was a significant increase in access under private contracts. for example, in cartagena, water supply coverage increased from 74 percent to almost universal coverage, while sewer coverage went up from 62 percent to 79 percent between 1996 and 2006. half a million people gained access and 60 percent of the new connections benefited families in the poorest income quintile. to achieve universal coverage, the operator made extensive use of community bulk-supply schemes that provide safe water to the many illegal settlements that were expanding on the city's periphery. however, there is no conclusive evidence showing that access increased more rapidly under private contracts than in the case of publicly managed utilities. in cartagena, tariffs declined substantially, indicating that the operator passed on efficiency gains to consumers. impact of privatization the evidence concerning the impact of water privatization is mixed. often proponents and opponents of water privatization emphasize those examples, studies, methods and indicators that support their respective point of view. as with any empirical study, results are influenced by the methods used. for example, some studies simply compare the situation before privatization to the situation after privatization. more sophisticated studies try to compare the changes in privately managed utilities to those of publicly managed utilities that operate under similar conditions during the same period. the second group of studies often use econometric techniques. the results also depend on the choice of the indicator used to measure impact: one common indicator is the increase in access to water supply and sewerage. other indicators are changes in tariffs, investments, water-borne diseases or indicators for service quality (e.g. continuity of supply or drinking water quality) and efficiency (e.g. water losses or labor productivity). impact on access when it comes to impact