Global water giants partnered to run a water system in the Argentine capital that the World Bank touted as a model of privatization. Investors extracted millions in profits. But now the model is crumbling under the weight of mounting costs.

Politically connected families and private companies split Manila in two to share turf. At first, the two companies brought miracles by bringing running water to thousands of poor people who never had it. Now the miracle has faded as one company bails out, leaving behind enormous debts.

The city of Hamilton was the first privatized large water utility in Canada, a country where waterworks have been overwhelmingly a public affair – and where most people like it that way. The Hamilton experience was supposed to demonstrate an alternative, free market model, supposed to change public opinion. It has. But not as expected.

The debacle in Atlanta might have been a relatively trivial incident if Suez (and a handful of other private water utilities that competed for the contract) hadn't seen the city as a beachhead in their attempts to turn water delivery into a hugely profitable business in both rich northern and poor southern economies.

Privatisation - which, in effect, means treating water as a commodity - together with the commercialisation of water, will result in ever-higher water costs for the poor. How can the principles of privatisation be in accordance with increased access to water resources for the poor? the case of Indonesia.