The MSP is conducting comparative studies of instances where municipal authorities have taken water and other services back under public control after they were privatized. This remunicipalization trend is taking place around the world and our objectives are to understand why it is happening, how it has been carried out, how services may be run differently by municipalities, and to what extent remunicipalization has been successful.
To date, the following cases have been explored: Buenos Aires (Argentina), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Hamilton (Canada), Malaysia (national study), and Paris (France). They are compiled in the book Remunicipalisation: Putting Water Back in Public Hands published in March 2012. This book was also translated to Spanish Remunicipalización: El retorno del agua a manos públicas. This work has been conducted in collaboration with Reclaiming Public Water, the Transnational Institute, and the Corporate Europe Observatory.