‘Reclaiming public water’

The ‘Reclaiming Public Water’ project joins social movements, NGOs, trade unions, public officials and water professionals. In opposition to neoliberal sector policies, they argue for improved public service delivery and effective citizen and workers participation. The paper critically engages with this transnational process of research, networking and political projection. I discuss the emerging opportunities for public sector reform without recourse to privatization that are based on the protagonism by an emerging transnational and locally embedded public sphere. The analysis of this ‘globalization from below’ examines the potential impacts on sector policy and argues for changes in research and development practices and policy.