Turning Water into a Commodity
Digital Innovation and the Private Sector as Development Agent
By Christiane Tristl
Published
Aug 26, 2025Page count
240 pagesISBN
978-1529245479Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Aug 26, 2025Page count
240 pagesISBN
978-1529245486Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Aug 26, 2025Page count
240 pagesISBN
978-1529245486Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
Turning Water into a Commodity
Pay-as-you-go water dispensers are used in many areas in the Global South, particularly those that are ‘off-grid’. This book examines the increasing influence of private corporations and philanthrocapitalist principles in development cooperation in the SDG-era by focusing on water supply to the inhabitants of rural and peri-urban areas of Kenya.
The book explores how private sector approaches open up remote regions to permanent arrangements of transnational market-based water supply beyond state sovereignty, which define their users as paying customers. Considering these technological solutions alongside socio-political realities and local knowledge, it offers a nuanced perspective on the promises and limitations of market-based interventions in the water sector.
Christiane Tristl is postdoctoral researcher in the Economic Geography Group at the University of Muenster.
List of Figures and Tables iv
About the Author v
Anonymization vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: PAYGo Water Dispensers and the Sustainable Development Goals 1
1 Digital Technologies and Private Sector Market Constructions 22
2 The Private Sector and Market-Based Development 36
3 From Large-Scale Water Infrastructure to Small-Scale Digital Technologies 52
4 Innovating PAYGo Water Dispensers 67
5 Extending Water Supply to Urban ‘Informal’ Areas 91
6 Disrupting Rural Water Supply 107
7 More Than Technical Infrastructures of Market-Based Development 125
8 Transparent Water Data or Multiple Waters? 142
Conclusion: The Private Sector as Development Agent and Market-Based Development in the Water Sector 159
Notes 172
References 175
Index 207
