Dispelling Myths, Strengthening Services

Written by Petri Autio

At mWater, we care deeply about building the systems that make safe water and sanitation a reality. We also know that progress in WASH is often slowed by persistent myths. A new open-access book, Dispelling Myths About Water Services, takes on 21 of these myths head-on. Many of them will sound familiar to anyone working in the sector. We’ve distilled five key messages/myths from the book into this post, along with how using mWater can help go beyond the myths towards truly better service delivery.

Myth 1: Privatization makes services more efficient

Decades of experience tell a different story. While the private sector can play roles in service delivery, many utilities that were privatized have since been brought back under public control. What matters most is accountable leadership, transparent financing, and good governance, and not ownership labels.

What mWater can do: as a Digital Public Good, mWater provides open, shared digital infrastructure that strengthens governance and accountability for any model of service delivery, ensuring efficiency comes from transparency rather than ideology.

Source: Chapter 4

Myth 2: Water is a human right, therefore it should be free

Access is indeed a right. However, providing reliable, safe services costs money: pipes, pumps, treatment, and staff. The real question concerns affordability and fairness, not “free water.” It’s the poorest who often pay the highest price when services fail.

What mWater can do: Our utility management tools allow service providers to track costs, revenues, and performance transparently. This helps design tariffs and subsidies that protect affordability while keeping systems sustainable.

Source: Chapter 4

Myth 3: Old pipes are automatically unsafe

This assumption drives wasteful investment and discourages smart asset management. In reality, age does not equal failure. Many systems continue to deliver safe water for decades when maintained properly. The real danger is neglect, not age.

What mWater can do: Our tools allow utilities to inventory, monitor, and plan maintenance so that pipes can be repaired and reused rather than abandoned too early. Renewal planning, not automatic replacement, saves costs, reduces service disruption, and builds resilience.

Source: Chapter 3

Myth 4: Bottled water is safer than tap water

In most regulated systems, the opposite is true. Tap water is continuously monitored and treated, while bottled water quality varies widely and comes with a heavy environmental footprint.

What mWater can do: With mWater Surveyor, communities can monitor water quality in real time, making safety transparent and building trust in local systems instead of defaulting to bottled alternatives.

Source: Chapter 3

Myth 5: Water resources and water services are the same thing

Too often, we mix up the management of rivers, lakes, and aquifers with the institutions and infrastructure that deliver water to people. The confusion matters.

What mWater can do: Our platform helps governments and utilities map and monitor services at the local level, while still connecting to the bigger picture of water resources. This ensures that service delivery is tracked and improved without losing sight of resource sustainability.

Source: Chapter 2

Why this matters for today’s WASH discussions

Each of these myths, in their own way, obscures the real drivers of progress. They pull attention away from the basics: good governance, strong institutions, financial transparency, and community trust. These are exactly the areas where mWater has focused its energy: creating free digital platforms that make hidden challenges visible and allow utilities to manage services professionally, even in resource-constrained settings.

Accurate insights are what unlock momentum. At mWater, we’ve seen how the sector has been held back by siloed databases and one-off data collection exercises that extract information but give little back. By moving instead toward integrated asset management through a sustainable, universal but flexible platform, we empower utilities, communities, and governments with tools that help manage systems, plan investments, and sustain services. In the same way, the WASH sector must move from myth-driven debates to data-driven decisions that build lasting resilience.

The conversation is open: what persistent myths have you encountered in your own work, and how do they shape the way decisions are made in WASH?