MDGs Negotiated. Constituting water sector reform in Niger.

Other conference contribution, 2009

This paper is the elaboration of one of the chapters of my thesis Who Brings the Water? Negotiating state responsibility in water sector reform in Niger. The dissertation deals with negotiation of state responsibility in water sector reform on three levels in Niger, between state and donors in the process of implementing the Paris declaration, between state and local level in the decentralisation process, and thirdly, between public and private actors in the privatisation process. This paper deals with ownership as one way of making the state more responsible for its development strategies and in this case as provider of public services, such as water. It centres on how state officials rationalise their own positions and the role of the state within the present reforms, aiming at attaining the Millennium Development water target, to halve by 2015, the proportion of the population who lack access to safe drinking water.