Turning Water into a Commodity: Digital Innovation and the Private Sector as Development Agent

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 and digital technologies 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.