In most developing countries, planning was initially concerned with economic growth. Upon gaining political independence, post-colonial countries set about addressing the unmet backlog of physical and social infrastructure problems, low rates of economic growth, and poverty. Since the post-independence era, development in non-industrialized countries has undergone significant changes in both scope and approach and has arisen from shifts in international agency policies as well as from local factors. These transformations are reflected in issues such as the provision of infrastructure, of which water supply is a prime example. The aim here is first to provide a schematic presentation of five periods of shifting paradigms in water provisioning policies globally and give their impact on Trinidad's water policies. Second, it seeks to analyse the genesis of government ideology of water as a public good. Finally, it identifies the new concepts in water supply that have emerged since the 1990s and gives their impacts internationally and locally.