Putting Public in Public Services: Research, Action and Equity in the Global South
International Conference – Cape Town, South Africa
April 13-16, 2014
OBJECTIVES
This MSP conference brought together researchers, activists, labour representatives, development practitioners and policy makers from around the world working to promote progressive public services, with an emphasis on health, water and electricity. It went beyond a mere critique of privatization to showcase promising service provision alternatives (past, present and future), pushing forward our conceptual and methodological understandings of how public attitudes and practices arise, how they are constituted, and how they might be sustained.
While there can be no universal definition of “public”, the conference aimed to improve dialogue and expand global networks on public alternatives, with a focus on Asia, Africa and Latin America. It offered practical alternatives and helped advance debates about public services in South Africa.
CALL FOR PAPERS & PANELS
You can access the original PDF call here.
PROGRAM
The full conference programme is available below and in PDF version. Conference papers can be downloaded and videos of presentations can be viewed on YouTube by clicking on the links below.
Sunday, April 13
4-5pm | Registration |
5-7pm | OPENING RECEPTION Drinks and light food will be served |
Welcome & conference overview Keynote address | David McDonald and Greg Ruiters, Co-directors, Municipal Services Project Trevor Ngwane, Univ. of Johannesburg Research Chair for Social Change (video) |
Monday, April 14
8:30-9am | Coffee and tea |
9-10:30am | PARALLEL SESSION 1 |
Public Finance for Public Services CHAIR: Emanuele Lobina | Thomas Marois (Turkey) – Reclaiming state-owned banks (video) Armando Rosales Garcia (Mexico) – State investment in municipal water systems: The case of Mexico City (video) Irfan Zamzami (Indonesia) – Groundwater tax as alternative financing for public water services: The case of Jakarta (video) |
Gendering Justice in Public Alternatives CHAIR: Bipasha Baruah | Chandra Talpade Mohanty (USA) – Gender matters: Theoretical and methodological reflections (video) Elena Kim (Kyrgyzstan) – Peasant women and public irrigation practices in post-socialist Central Asia: An institutional ethnography (video) Alexandra Müller (South Africa) – Public health care for South African LGBT people: Health rights violations and accountability mechanisms (video) |
Beyond the State CHAIR: Susan Spronk | Christoph Hermann (Austria) – Assessing the public nature of public services: Use over exchange values (video) Lisa Hanley (USA) – Public services under austerity: A critical look at the role of social enterprises in Mexico and Colombia (video) Yoswa Dambisya (South Africa) – Faith-based health services in Uganda (video) |
10:30-11am | Break |
11am-12:30pm | PARALLEL SESSION 2 |
Legislation and Human Rights CHAIR: Mary Galvin | Claudia Campero Arena (Mexico) – Promoting transparency and a human rights perspective in Mexico City's water system (video) Mova Al’Afghani (Indonesia) – Can Indonesian administrative law protect citizens in the face of neoliberalism? (video) Dieter Wartchow (Brazil) – National sanitation laws in Brazil: An opportunity lost? (video) |
Electric Futures CHAIR: Lenny Gentle | Sandra van Niekerk (South Africa) – Renewable energy through the public sector in Africa: The potential for democratic electrification (video) Daniel Chavez (Uruguay) – Beauty and the Beast: Latin America’s social experiments in public electricity (video) Bipasha Baruah (Canada) – Women in the renewable energy sector in India (video) |
Citizenship and Elected Politics CHAIR: Azwell Banda | Erick Palomares (Mexico) – Winning elections, providing public services: Exploring the tensions in Latin America (video) Leila Harris (USA) – Assessing states and evaluating publics: Narratives of service delivery in Accra and Cape Town (video) Marcela López (Colombia) – Out of the network, out of the game: Reclaiming citizenship through access to water in Medellín (video) |
12:30-2pm | Lunch |
2-3:30pm | PARALLEL SESSION 3 |
Public-Public Partnerships CHAIR: Qamar Mahmood | Emanuele Lobina (UK) – Institutional determinants of successful public-community partnerships (video) Satoko Kishimoto (Belgium) – Assessing the UN’s Global Water Operator Partnership Alliance (GWOPA) (video) |
Radicalizing Universal Health Care CHAIR: Monica Mutesa | Luis Hernandez (Mexico) – Universal health systems in Latin America: The contrasting models of Chile and Costa Rica (video) Chan Chee-Khoon (Malaysia) – The Malaysian health system in transition: The ambiguity of public and private (video) |
Transforming Waste Management CHAIR: Mary Ann Manahan | Melanie Samson (South Africa) – Including the informal, transforming the public: Insights from innovations in the waste sector (video) Federico Parra (Colombia) – Recognition of the ‘recicladores’ as public managers of waste in Colombia (video) Poornima Chikarmane (India) – Of users, providers and the state: Solid waste management in Pune, India (video) |
3:30-4pm | Break |
4-6pm | PLENARY 1 |
The Future of Public Enterprises: A Global Overview Keynote & Book Launches | Rethinking Corporatization and Public Services in the Global South (Zed Books, London, 2014) David McDonald, editor of the book and co-director of the Municipal Services Project (video) Reorienting Development: State-Owned Enterprises in Latin America and the World (TNI, Amsterdam, 2014) Daniel Chavez, book co-editor and Fellow at the Transnational Institute (video) Carolina Cosse, President, ANTEL, Uruguay (video) |
7.30pm | Group dinner (optional) |
Tuesday, April 15
8:30-9am | Coffee and tea |
9-10:30am | PARALLEL SESSION 4 |
Labour-Community Alliances CHAIR: Tengo Tengela | Madeleine Bélanger (Canada) – Public workers in defense of ‘acueductos comunitarios’ in Valle del Cauca, Colombia (video) Dale McKinley (South Africa) – South African labour-community alliances to promote public services (video) Michael Blake (South Africa) – Invited spaces and meaningful working class engagement in the City of Cape Town (video) |
Democratising Public Health: Community-Based Monitoring CHAIR: Yoswa Dambisya | Abhay Shukla (India) – People are reclaiming the public health system: Community based monitoring in Maharashtra, India (video) Ariel Frisancho (Peru) – Community monitoring to inform people-centred policies in Peru’s health sector reform (video) |
Environmental Justice and Public Water in South Africa CHAIR: Jessica Wilson (no videos due to technical difficulties) | Taryn Pereira (South Africa) – Civil society’s responses to punitive water demand management in the context of climate change Mary Galvin (South Africa) – Dealing with shit in sub-Sahara Africa: The impact of “new” approaches to sanitation on human rights Michela Marcatelli (Italy) – What is ‘public’ about water in the Waterberg? A perspective on public water services from rural South Africa |
10:30-11am | Break |
11-12:30pm | PARALLEL SESSION 5 |
Post-Privatization Publics CHAIR: Leonard Shang-Quartey | Julieta del Valle (Argentina) – Guaranteeing access to public water and sanitation: ‘Acompañamiento social’ in Buenos Aires (video) Susan Spronk (Canada) – A reflection on Bolivian water reforms since the Water Wars (video) Mildred Warner (USA) – Insourcing versus outsourcing in the United States (video) |
Decommodifying Public Health in South Africa CHAIR: Chris Colvin | Jane Doherty (South Africa) – The leadership role of clinical staff in district hospitals: possibilities and challenges (video) Jonathan Grossman (South Africa) – Care-givers and the struggle for compassionate care as an essential public service (video) Hanne Jensen Haricharan (South Africa) – Improving primary health care through community participation in health (video) |
Building a Global Pro-Public Movement CHAIR: Amit Sengupta | Mary Ann Manahan (Philippines) – From deconstruction to reconstruction: Lessons from water justice campaigns (video) Meera Karunananthan (Canada) – Mobilizing for public control of water (video) Louis Reynolds (South Africa) – Public meanings of Health for All (video) |
12:30-2pm | Lunch |
2-4pm | PLENARY 2 |
Post-Apartheid Publics in South Africa | Azwell Banda, National Union of Metalworkers of SA (video) David Sanders, Emeritus Professor, School of Public Health, UWC (video) Greg Ruiters, Professor, School of Government, UWC (video) Samantha Ashman, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Johannesburg, and Co-Director of PERSA (video) Chair: Walter Theledi, General Secretary, SAMWU |
5pm | Farewell happy hour (optional) |
Wednesday, April 16
9am-3pm | Field visits: Manenberg Peoples Center, Progressive Youth Movement in Khayelitsha, Hanover Park |