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March 31, 2006
In advance of Blue October
This October has been declared Blue October by the international water rights movement, and a series of actions and educational fora are being organized to continue building the global movement for water justice. At the end of the World Water Forum and the International Days in Defense of Water, back in March, I was unable to post a summary. Now, to wrap up some of what came out of those days, and as a prelude ot future postings, here are some articles and reports from the water front:
The WWF was widely considered a failure, while the alternative forum was considered, by all of its participants, to be a huge success. I wrote this article about it for Earth Island Journal, also posted on Hesperian Foundation's website:www.hesperian.info
Here are some articles from daily papers back in March about the water forum and the issues involved:
NY Times:
www.nytimes.com
SF Chronicle:
www.sfgate.com
Here are three reports that have been published in thge last several months on the failures of privatization and the potential for decentralized, locally controlled water infrastructure:
Spreading the Water Wealth, from International Rivers Network:
www.irn.org
‘Pipe Dreams: The failure of the private sector to invest in water services in developing countries’, from World Development Movement and Public Services International:
AND, here, in English is the declaration that came out of the alternative water forum:
Joint Declaration of the Movements in Defense of Water
From March 14 to 19th, we, human beings with a holistic vision of life, activists from social movements, non-governmental organizations, and networks that struggle throughout the world in the defense of water and territory and for the commons, have shared ideas, struggles, worries and proposals. At the same time we have realized how our struggles have brought change around the world, slowing the process of water privatization. Now that we are not on the defensive, we are capable of promoting concrete proposals advancing in the life of every corner of our world.
With the spirit of Caracas which brought together many global organizations in the defense of water, now we have in our history and in our hearts the struggles of La Parota, La Laguna, Xoxocotla. Acuitapilco and many others of Mexico and around the world. The humanity and the commitment of those who have organized this Forum is a great success in the construction of our movement.
For all of this, in continuity with the meetings of previous years during the World Social Fora, social movements around the world struggle for a holistic and ecological vision of the right to water and against its commodification in all spheres (domestic, agricultural and industrial), and we come together in a platform of common action, seeing the struggles of each locality within the framework of a global strategy.
Considering that:
* Water in all of its forms is a common good and access to water is a fundamental and inalienable human right. Water is the patrimony of communities, of the people, and of humanity, the basic element of all life on our planet. Water is not a commodity. For these reasons we reject all forms of privatization, including that of public-private partnerships that have been revealed to be a complete failure around the world.
* Management and control of water must be public, social, cooperative, participatory, equitable, and not for profit. It is the obligation of all local, national and international public institutions to guarantee these conditions from the planning stages through the delivery of water services.
* Solidarity between present and future generations should be guaranteed, and for this reason we reject the neoliberal, consumerist development model that promotes overexploitation of Mother Nature.
* Sustainable management of ecosystems and the preservation of the water cycle is necessary by way of the proper administration of territories and the conservation of natural environments. Watersheds are fundamental units of public management, a factor in community identity and unity, where popular participation is effected. The defense of water implies recuperating the health of ecosystems from the catchment basin to the treatment of residual waters.
* In regards to the aforementioned, we affirm our direct opposition to all World Water Fora as meetings of large transnational corporations, international financial institutions (the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, etc.) and of the world’s powerful governments, for being exclusive and antidemocratic. For these reasons we reject the legitimacy of these organizations which ignore the demands and the real needs of the people and which, on the contrary, continue seeking new forms of commercialization of water, disregarding the extremely high human, social and ecological costs of this neoliberal model.
WE CALL
On all organizations, social movements, governments and parliaments to include these principles in local, national and international laws and regulations.
On all citizens of the planet to develop collective actions to unite, organize, and realize proposals for change through the articulation of a global water movement.
WE DEMAND
The exclusion of the WTO and of all international, multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements from water.
The abolition of the International Center for International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), considering the experiences of Cochabamba and other localities that want to restore the sovereignty of their common resources to public control.
The restoration and promotion of the public, social cooperative, participatory and holistic management of water.
We demand that every human being have access and the right to water of good quality and in quantity sufficient for hygiene and good nutrition and that, in places where there is potable water delivery service, the minimum necessary amount should be allocated free of charge regardless of any differences, whether of culture, society, religion, geography, economy or gender. We reject any double standard. No corporation, government or international institution can stop water service in domestic uses for lack of payment.
Industries and corporations responsible for contamination of water resources must repair any damage, whether environmental, human, or economic, that they have caused.
WE REJECT
For illegitimate all demands for profits and indemnities by transnational corporations.
Any financing from International Financial Institutions that is conditional on the liberalization and privatization of water services.
National and regional legislation that invites the process of privatization and commercialization of water.
The predatory and unsustainable model of water management based on megaprojects, dams, port construction, mining exploitation and bottling water.
WE PROPOSE
To promote the development of high-quality public water management services that function democratically and by way of the equitable exchange of skills and knowledge, sharing all knowledge whether it be technical, capacity-building, or involving financing schemes and proposals for a model that is public, social, cooperative and participatory.
To promote education and community organization about the responsible and sustainable use of water.
To share and make known experiences of the development of solidarity funds for the financing of public, social, cooperative and participatory water management.
The creation of international and regional observatories as meeting points for social organizations, movements and cooperative networks in order to exercise social control over the activities of transnational corporations and international financial institutions, and which will also involve parliaments, local governments and democratic institutions.
To advance the demand that governments and businesses repair the damage they have caused to human populations through contamination and lack of access to water services.
To strengthen existing international tribunals and to promote the formation of additional such tribunals in diverse regions of the world.
WE COMMIT
To promote a global action plan to continue the process of the construction and mobilization of solidarity networks in the defense of water.
To promote, from the base of local struggles, a solidarity platform on a global level that will strengthen and unify a global water movement.
To value the contribution of women, indigenous and aboriginal peoples, youth and all people incorporating the defense of their rights in the development of models that show that another form of water management is possible.
To continue this process and to enrich it with all possible contributions in the succeeding gatherings that our movements will organize around the world, from the Encuentro Enlazando Alternativas Unión Europea-America Latina in May in Vienna, the Gathering of the Community of South American Nations in Bolivia in September and the Assembly of Citizens for Water in Brussels in December.
Under these conditions the world water movement commits to realizing three collective actions:
* A simultaneous, collective, global action between September and October of 2006.
* To take up a common slogan for all of our activities: The right to water is possible: public participatory management.
* This declaration will be made public through press conferences in each locality upon returning to our homes as a collective statement of the global water movement.
Signed on this 19th day of March, 2006, in Mexico, Tenochtitlan, by the organizations from more than 40 countries participating in the International Forum in the Defense of Water
Posted by jeff at 02:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2006
LAST DAYS of THE WORLD WATER FORUM
The last days of the official forum were a whirlwind, and I’ve been unable to post. I’ll try to give a brief summary – admittedly incomplete – of my experience of the forum’s conclusion….In trying to sum up, it will be difficult not to go on at length...so I beg forgiveness in advance for stuffing your mailboxes with, as they say in Mexico, "mucho bla bla bla."
By the end of the World Water Forum – World Water Day, March 22 -- many of the Mexican newspapers had published articles recognizing that it was, overall, a top-heavy event where a lot of money was spent and little was achieved. And many participants seemed to agree. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, Ministers of Water, Energy and Environment from 78 countries, and 68 other Ministerial delegations, negotiated the final Ministerial Declaration of the Forum. Rather than achieving “consensus” on the declaration, however, several Ministers -- most notably Abel Mamani, Water Minister of Bolivia – demanded changes or additions to the document. By the closing ceremony of the WWF no agreement had been reached, though a bland and noncommittal document was agreed upon soon after.
The final declaration commits governments to prioritize water and sanitation as aspects of sustainable development; to continue efforts to reach the millennium development goals of cutting in half the number of people without water and sanitation services by 2015; and to commit funds to reducing risks from water-related natural disasters, among other commitments that do little, if anything, to recognize a need for a different approach to the water issue. Recognizing the bland nature of the document, the Ministries of Bolivia and Venezuela lobbied hard to add an addendum – in the Venezuelan Minister’s words, “to add a little salt to a tasteless soup.” Several other governments – Cuba, Uruguay, Brazil, Angola and Argentina have agreed, or nearly agreed, with the contents of the addendum – and at the end of the forum, the sense behind the scenes was that the discussion was more open than closed.
THE BOLIVIAN ADDENDUM, and some thoughts on the alternative forum....
Below is the content of the addendum promoted by Bolivia and Venezuela. When asked why they saw a need to draft this addendum, Ernesto Paeva, the head of the Venezuelan delegation, said “It was not possible to have an open discussion about the issues that we see as important, and for this reason we have drafted a complementary document that we believe reflects the true interests of the people of the world.”
Asked if many governments disagreed with the addendum, and if their intervention had caused a severe disruption of the declaration process, Abel Mamani said: “Unfortunately in these processes, protocol often comes before real discussion of the issues. It is not that other governments do not agree with our point of view – it is that they believ in the importance of protocol. As you know, I do not come from the political class, but from the social movements – therefore I have little regard for protocol.”
He continued, “Our intention has not been to sabotage consensus. But consensus in our understanding is the complete agreement between 140 countries involved in the process – and we are not in complete agreement.”
So, without further ado, here is the addendum to the Declaration of the 4th World Water Forum:
COMPLEMENTARY DECLARATION OF THE FOURTH WORLD WATER FORUM
The Ministers or their representatives herein signing at the Fourth World Water Forum, declare before the participants of this Forum, the international community and the people of the world, the following:
Access to water with quality, quantity and equity, constitutes a fundamental human right. The States, with the participation of the communities, shall make efforts at all levels to guarantee this right to their citizens, within their respective countries. Thus, we agree to continue making all efforts within the Commission on Sustainable Development of the United Nations and other international fora according to their mandates, to recognize and make this right effective.
We declare our profound concern regarding the possible negative impacts that international instruments -- such as the free trade and investment agreements -- can have on water resources, and reaffirm the sovereign right of every country to regulate water and all its uses and services.
We exhort the international community and multilateral entities to comply with the commitments repeatedly made to support efforts of countries guarantee access to water and sewage treatment.
We call on all States to develop the World Water Forum in the framework of the international multilateral system, based on the principles of full participation and inclusion.
Mexico City, March 22, 2006
Signed at the meeting by Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and Uruguay. (Other States might sign later)
Abel Mamani, Water Minsiter of Bolivia, with Ernesto Paeva, Vice-Minister of Environment of Venezuela
THE INTERNATIONAL DAYS IN DEFENSE OF WATER
In contrast to the official forum, the alternative forum concluded with a great deal of agreement among the participants. The central points that will lead to continued action in the water movement are:
-- Water is a fundamental human right, and not a commercial good.
-- Water out of the WTO and WTO out of water.
-- Rejection of the authority of the World Water Council and World Water Forum.
In addition to the basics, many subtle points were brought up in public meetings that, many feel, have helped to sharpen the analysis of the water movement. For example, in the last few years the alternative to water privatization has been made out to be “public management of water services.” But several participants, most notably the Uruguayan delegation who were, in their own words “the spinal column of Uruguay’s movement to build a constitutional approach to water as a human right” insisted that the term “public control” leaves too much up to states that may be corporate, corrupt, and anti-democratic. The emphasis, agreed on the final declaration, is now on water management that is “public, social, community controlled and participatory.”
The overall experience of the alternative forum was empowering and forward looking, especially in the fact that the forum was very much led by social movements and the ngo’s that work with them. (In my personal experience, it felt very much like a People’s Health Movement event, where activists from all levels of civil society manage to participate equally). If I have one criticism of the alternative events, it would be the lack of practical, hands-on skills-building. There was much radical talk of participatory management, clear analysis of the problems and sharing of information between movements in many countries. But insisting on community controlled water management means building both technical and social skills, and I would hope that future for a would make room for workshops on home water treatment, ecological sanitation, graywater management, water conserving agriculture and other small-scale community-controlled methods….
In the official forum, to my knowledge, there were exactly two (amongst 2000) stands promoting these kinds of technologies. One was an ecological sanitation stand, supported by the Swedish government and Mexican ngo’s, and the other was a display sponsored by the Dutch government of simple ceramic water filters, low-tech rope pumps, hand-operated well-drilling equipment, and that sort of thing. (All of these technologies are described in the Hesperian Foundation publications Water for Life and Sanitation and Cleanliness for a Health Environment.) At the Dutch Pavilion, accompanied by the Dutch appropriate technology promoter Practica Foundation, I met and spoke at length with Allen Fajardo, one of the leading promoters of appropriate technology (AT) in rural Nicaragua.
Here are some of his commentaries about the World Water Forum and the role of AT in water development:
“One of the great debates in the forum is that some think the millennium development goals (MDG’s) are very ambitious, while others say they are insufficient. To those pessimists who say that the goals are too ambitious, those of us working in AT say that it is not that the MDG’s are too ambitious but that there is a lack of political will. If there were political will of all governments to improve health and services, it could be done. And if we were to be less ambitious, and choose simply one of the MDG’s – the one for water – this would help us to achieve all the others.
“Another problem is that of administration. If we had good administration, we would give more emphasis to appropriate, small-scale solutions promoted by communities, and this would in turn create more democracy.”
“This is to say that, yes, the problem is political, because it has to do with power. Because people have no power, they have no water.”
“Appropriate technology has a democratic affect, because it empowers people, and when the people are empowered, they resolve their own problems. Take for example, rainwater harvesting – rainwater cannot be collected in one central place and then distributed to people. It is decentralized by its nature. Also the Nicaraguan rope pump [a simple pump made of rope, rubber gaskets, and pvc pipe that can be used to raise water in nearly any setting, and which is in wide use in Central America]. If we have millions of people using rope pumps, we have millions of people protecting the aquifers – which means reforesting, which means protecting water catchments, which means ensuring that water goes back into the ground. In taking water, by hand, from the insides of the earth, the people are personally taking something from the earth, and this gives them the consciousness to also give back to the earth. In contrast to large systems of pipes and water storage, this gives people a direct relation with the water and with the earth. This doesn’t mean we are against large systems in cities and elsewhere where they are necessary, just to say they should be augmented by small scale systems that work towards developing democracy and ecological consciousness….”
“We want potable water for everyone. But we have to be careful that our politics do not become potable, if you know what I mean. Potable water is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. But we need to recognize that the problem of water has color – the color of politics. It has flavor – the flavor of our cultures. And too often it has a smell – the smell of corruption.”
With that, Allan, a hefty man with many years working with social movements and NGO’s in revolutionary Nicaragua and after -- erupted into a fit of laughter. I said that he was confirming for me what they say – that all Nicaraguans are poets. He answered, “In Nicaragua we have a saying: el que no es poeta as hijo de poeta.” ("He who is not a poet is a son of a poet," but it takes on a different meaning in the Spanish, ha ha ha...)
Henk Holtslag of Practica Foundation, Netherlands, Arno Rosemarin of Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden, and Allan Fajardo, promoter of appropriate technologies in Nicaragua, discussing the fine points of the Nicaraguan rope pump.
Okay, I’ve gone on way too long. In closing, an interview with Patrick Apoya, who participated in both the official forum and the alternative forum. Patrick, who I know through work at Hesperian, is a leader of Ghana’s Anti-Privatization Forum and head of the Ghanain NGO Community Partnership for Health and Development:
“There has been a vast difference between the two forums. The official forum is supposed to be a place where stakeholders, technocrats, and policy makers address different problems together. But I think this objective has been defeated. I would like to see a platform where community people are brought together with academics and governments. I don’t see that platform. The academics are locked in their rooms, the governments are locked in their rooms, and the community people are not invited.
“Most of the World Water Forum has been about things – what we have invented, what we can sell – rather than about actions – what we can do together. This is not right. It is a marketplace not for ideas, but for products. Everything I see is just like a trade fair.
Patrick Apoya of Ghana in the clean, well-lighted press center of the World Water Forum
“If you compare this to the alternative forum, you see every single continent, every single sub-region, and everybody talking together. It is not three people talking here and five people talking there, but everybody talking together. And they are talking about substantive issues – very big issues. This is how the official forum should be, but it is not. I will not be surprised if, in some years, the official forum becomes obsolete and everyone is coming to the alternative forum…”
I may be able to post some links to important issues that came out of the alternative forum in the week to come, as well as an English translation of the people's Declaration when it's done. But for now, no more dispatches.... In closing, a series of photos of people and scenes from these ten days in Mexico:
A view of the tired crowd, last day of the alternative forum
Oscar Olivera, a leader of the Bolivian popular water struggle
Mexican activists in the street, March 16
Mexican activists in the street, March 16
Hasta la proxima, Mexico lindo y querido....
Posted by jeff at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2006
Article on the action in Mexico City posted on Upside Down World
Sadly, I haven't been able to post pictures amidst these dispatches, but good fortune has brought me together with friend, activist and photojournalist Orin Langelle of the Global Justice Ecology Project, who covered the March 16th march with me. Together we've put together an article on the energetic events around the two water fora, and had it published by the fine people at Upsidedownworld.org. You'll find some repetition from what's been said here, but some hot breaking news as well, and some smashing photos, so check it out at:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/
And don't ask me what time of the morning it is here in the humid and noisy wee hours of Mexico City....
Posted by jeff at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)
Joint Declaration of Movements in Defense of Water
As the alternative forum draws to a close today, with lingering events around the city, there is a shared sense that the International Days in Defense of Water, with all the distinct events and huge diversity of attendees, has been an extreme success....I haven't posted much on the forum process, as I've been engaged in living it, not reporting it, but groups from far-flung countries -- Colombia, Uruguay, Canada, Ghana, Brazil -- will all be returning home with the sense that a clear-sighted and forward lkooking water movement has been built. In the next days I'll try to give a sense of how this all worked...
This morning I took part in a meeting of the burdgeoning US water movement, with activists from local struggles in New Mexico, New Hampshire, California, Wisconsin and elsewhere, indigenous groups, border activists, and groups working on national policy campaigns, like Corporate Accountability International, Food and Water Watch, Womens' International League for Peace and Freedom, and on and on, together laying plans to bring water rights to the national agenda at the US Social Forum next January (??) and the Border Social Forum in El Paso/Juarez this May, as well as discussing health impact studies, a proposed Coca Cola boycott and other focused strategies to build the movement.
And, after many long sessions of directly democratic process late into the nights and again in the morning yesterday, a document was drafted by the assembled movements at the alternative water forum to declare some basic principles in the global struggle for community-controlled water resource management.....It will soon be translated into numerous languages including English, but the version completed and agreed on today is in Spanish. For those of you who read Spanish, you'll find a lot of interesting points. For those who don't, now's a good time to learn, as Latin America erupts with popular movements and revolutionary fervor....
Luego luego I'll finish up these dispatches with some notes on how the alternative forum worked, the tone and character of the events, and other points of interest....
Ciudad de México, marzo 19, 2006.
DECLARACION CONJUNTA DE LOS MOVIMIENTOS EN DEFENSA DEL AGUA
Del 14 al 19 de marzo, nosotros, seres humanos con una visión integral de la vida, activistas de movimientos sociales, organizaciones no gubernamentales, redes que luchan en todo el mundo por la defensa del agua y territorio y de los bienes comunes, hemos compartido ideas, luchas, inquietudes y propuestas. Al mismo tiempo nos hemos dado cuenta de cómo las experiencias de lucha han cambiado la realidad en todos los lugares del planeta, deteniendo el proceso de privatización del agua. Ya no estamos en la defensiva, somos capaces de promover propuestas concretas que ya caminan en la vida de cada rincón del planeta.
A partir del espíritu de Caracas que sumó a muchas organizaciones del mundo alrededor de la defensa del agua, ahora ya tenemos en nuestra historia y corazón las luchas de La Parota, La Laguna, Xoxocotla, Acuitlapilco y muchas otras de México y el mundo. La humanidad y el compromiso de los que organizaron este Foro es un éxito en la construcción de nuestro movimiento.
Por todo esto, en continuidad con los encuentros de los años anteriores durante los Foros Sociales Mundiales, los movimientos sociales que en todo el planeta luchan por el derecho al agua en una visión ecosistémica e integral y en contra de su mercantilización al interior de todos los ámbitos (doméstico, agrícola e industrial) confluimos en una plataforma de acción común sobre los problemas de cada lugar en función de una estrategia global.
Considerando que:
1. El agua en todas sus formas es un bien común y su acceso es un derecho humano fundamental e inalienable. El agua es un patrimonio de las comunidades, de los pueblos y de la humanidad, principio constitutivo de la vida en nuestro planeta. El agua no es mercancía. Por eso rechazamos todas las formas de privatización, inclusive la asociación pública-privada que han mostrado su total fracaso en todo el planeta.
2. La gestión y el control deben permanecer en el ámbito público, social, comunitario, participativo, con equidad y sin fin de lucro. Es obligación de todas las instituciones públicas locales, nacionales e internacionales garantizar estas condiciones desde la planificación hasta el control final del proceso.
3. Se debe garantizar la solidaridad entre las generaciones presentes y futuras, por eso rechazamos este modelo desarrollista, neoliberal y consumista que promueve la sobre-explotación de la madre naturaleza.
4. Es necesaria una gestión sustentable de los ecosistemas y la preservación del ciclo del agua mediante el ordenamiento del territorio y la conservación de los ambientes naturales. Las cuencas hidrográficas son unidades básicas integrales de gestión pública, factor de identidad y unión comunitaria, donde se efectivice la participación ciudadana y de los pueblos. La defensa del agua implica recuperar la salud de los ecosistemas desde las fuentes de captación hasta el tratamiento de las aguas residuales.
5. En función de lo antes dicho, dejamos sentada nuestra firme oposición a todos los Foros Mundiales del Agua, ámbitos de grandes empresas transnacionales, de instituciones financieras internacionales (Banco Mundial, BID, BEI, etc.) y de las potencias gubernamentales del mundo, por excluyentes y antidemocráticos. Por eso no legitimamos a estos organismos que ignoran las demandas y las exigencias reales de los pueblos y que por el contrario continúan buscando nuevas formas de mercantilización del agua, desdeñando los altísimos costos humanos, sociales y ambientales de este modelo neoliberal.
LLAMAMOS
A las organizaciones, movimientos sociales, gobiernos y parlamentos a incluir estos principios en los marcos jurídicos, locales, nacionales e internacionales.
A todos los ciudadanos y ciudadanas del planeta a desarrollar acciones conjuntas para unirnos, organizarnos y concretizar nuestras propuestas de cambio articulando un movimiento mundial del agua.
EXIGIMOS
La exclusión de la OMC y de los demás acuerdos internacionales de libre comercio e inversión, tanto bilaterales como multilaterales del agua.
La abolición del Centro Internacional sobre Disputas Relativos a Inversiones (CIADI) considerando las experiencias de Cochabamba y otros pueblos que quieren recuperar la soberanía de sus bienes comunes en manos públicas.
Recuperar y promover la gestión pública, social, comunitaria, participativa e integral del agua.
Exigimos que cualquier ser humano tenga acceso y derecho al agua de buena calidad y en cantidad suficiente para la higiene y la alimentación y que, en los sitos en donde hay servicio de suministro de agua potable se proporcione una cantidad necesaria en forma gratuita independientemente de su situación cultural, religiosa, social, geográfica, económica y de género. Por eso rechazamos cualquier tipo de doble estándar. Ninguna empresa, gobierno e institución internacional puede interrumpir el servicio por falta de pago para consumo doméstico.
Las industrias y corporaciones responsables de acciones contaminantes reparen los daños ambientales, humanos y económicos que han causado.
RECHAZAMOS.
Por ilegítimas todas las demandas por ganancias e indemnizaciones de las corporaciones y transnacionales.
Cualquier financiamiento condicionado a que se liberalicen y privaticen los servicios de agua, por parte de las Instituciones Financieras Internacionales (IFIS).
Las legislaciones nacionales y regionales que abren las puertas al proceso de privatización y mercantilización de las aguas.
El modelo predatorio y no sustentable del agua mediante la realización de megraproyectos, represas, construcción de puertos, explotación minera y su embotellamiento.
PROPONEMOS
Promover la articulación de organismos de gestión pública de calidad que funcionan sobre bases democráticas mediante el intercambio de experiencias compartiendo también el conocimiento técnico, capacitación, esquemas y propuestas de financiamiento para la consolidación de un modelo público, social, comunitario y participativo.
Impulsar la educación y organización comunitaria sobre un uso y consumo responsable y sustentable del agua.
Difundir experiencias de constitución de fondos de solidaridad para el financiamiento de modelos de gestión pública, participativa, comunitaria y social del agua.
La creación de observatorios tanto internacionales como regionales que sean punto de encuentro de organizaciones sociales, movimientos y redes de cooperación internacional para ejercer el control social de las actividades de las transnacionales y las IFIS que involucre también a los parlamentos, los gobiernos locales y las instituciones democráticas.
Avanzar en la exigencia a los gobiernos y empresas en la reparación del daño que han causado a poblaciones por la contaminación y falta de acceso al agua.
Fortalecer los tribunales internacionales existentes y promover su conformación en las diversas regiones del mundo.
NOS COMPROMETEMOS
A impulsar un plan de acción mundial que continúe este proceso de construcción de redes y de movilización en torno al agua.
A impulsar desde las luchas locales una plataforma a nivel mundial que sobre la base de la solidaridad nos une y nos fortalece.
A valorizar la aportación de las mujeres, los pueblos originarios, los indígenas, los jóvenes y de todas las personas incorporando la defensa de sus derechos en la construcción de modelos que muestren que otra forma de gestión del agua es posible.
A continuar este proceso enriqueciéndolo con todos los aportes posibles en los próximos encuentros que nuestros movimientos tendrán en el mundo, desde el Encuentro Enlazando Alternativas Unión Europea – América Latina en mayo en Viena, la Reunión de la Comunidad Sudamericana de las Naciones en Bolivia en septiembre y la Asamblea de Ciudadanos para el Agua en Bruselas en diciembre.
En este marco el movimiento mundial del agua se compromete a realizar tres acciones conjuntas:
1.- Una actividad global, común y simultánea entre septiembre y octubre del 2006.
2.- Tomar como lema común en todas las actividades: El derecho al agua es posible: gestión pública participativa.
3.- Esta declaración será difundida en conferencia de prensa en cada localidad al regreso a sus territorios como consigna del movimiento mundial del agua.
Posted by jeff at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2006
Two venues like two worlds lapping and overlapping in one
In the days that followed, the World Water Forum has carried on inside a massive convention center. Free buses taking delegates to the forum tell the story: I boarded the bus outside the Sheraton – one of Mexico City’s most extravagant hotels, located next to the barbed wire bailiwick of the US Embassy – and I shouldn’t have been surprised when the bus made the circuit of several other luxury hotels picking up handfuls of smartly dressed delegates. To be fair, watershed educators, filmmakers and press from around the global south made up a strong percentage of the crowd on my particular bus. I spoke with an Oxford PhD candidate from San Cristobal, Chiapas, a film critic from Manhattan and two photographers from Angola. Arriving at the Banamex Center where the WWF takes place, we were let off at the security gate where my pass was scanned before I passed through a metal detector and underwent a brief search of my bags before walking into the bright lights and techno-madness of the what seems to be essentially an enormous trade show.
Endless booths, all competing for attention with lights and sounds and running water and posters and flashy models (both live human models of the made-up high-heeled variety and less sexed-up scale models of watersheds, dams and irrigation systems). On display for your high-tech consumer excitement: Water filtration systems, beachy tourist destinations, pumps and pipes and water storage systems, universities and companies and products and products and products. Here and there, amidst the eye candy and bombardment of sound, a handful of stalls promoted rainwater catchment, ecological sanitation, rope pumps and pedal pumps and other locally controllable, sustainable technologies.
The contrast between the WWF and the alternative forum – held in the Telephone Workers’ Union Hall and other peoples’ venues around the City (of which, more later....) – is the contrast between the developed and underdeveloped worlds, between the restless idealists of civil society organizing themselves to promote environmental and social justice and the monied technocratic utopians organized by consumption and circumscribed by capital`s ever forward flight toward bigger better faster finer ways to f*&# the world’s poor.
At least, that’s the feeling I get just at the moment, sitting among the bleeps and echoes and flashing lights of the convention center.
This morning at the alternative forum, the Minister of Water of Bolivia, Abel Mamani, gave a statement about the World Water Forum: “The Bolivian government will not sign the Declaration that comes out of the Forum,” he said. “We have read the draft document, and it says nothing. It doesn’t take a position. It would be good if it said something – even if this something was something we do not agree with. Even if this document came out in favour of privatization, that would be better, because we would know better what we are talking about. But in a moment of such crisis in the world as we are living today, a document that says nothing is the worst outcome we could expect….”
He went on: “Our role as human beings is to take care of the natural world, and for this reason water cannot be treated as a commodity – because then we are not taking care of the natural world, we are taking care of our pocket books.”
“The World Bank says States have no money to fund public water. But there is money. Where is the money? The money is in weapons, in defence, in war. If a proposal to take 2%, 5%, 7% out of defence spending and put it into public sector water, if such a proposal were taken seriously, the problem of public water could be solved tomorrow.”
And speaking of `defense,’ a rare report by AP posted to the New York Times –- the only notice about the events in Mexico City that has yet appeared in the US commercial press, to my knowledge -- tells us this: “Water is so scarce or polluted in some parts of the world that the poor might actually go to war to get their hands on it.” I`ll buy a Cherry Coke with a bendy straw for the first person who can tell me what the HELL that means.
Posted by jeff at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2006
International march in defense of the right to water
The opening day of the WWF was marked by a massive protest march through the streets of Mexico City. In the early evening of March 16th more then 20,000 mostly peaceful demonstrators braved a gauntlet of riot police and a 6.5 kilometer march route in the first ever international march in favor of the human right to water. From the Angel of the Independence in the trendy Zona Rosa neighborhood to the Banamex Center where the WWF was having it opening session, the march grew increasingly diverse and increasingly militant. Families, workers’ unions, popular organizations, sectarian groups, and international activists marched together chanting and singing through the streets in a demonstration that the question of access to water is not a marginal issue in this city of 26 million in a country known to be suffering from water scarcity and water stress. This was very much a march of the people.
Among the workers and families marching, hundreds of youths with masks, sticks, and other black-block accoutrements taunted the police and several small scuffles broke out leading to the arrest, and eventual release of 26 youths allegedly armed with Molotov cocktails.
What the press focused on, not without reason, was the ecstatic destruction of a police car, which represented the entire march on many of front pages the next morning.
(I have a number of good photos from the March, including the violent incidents, but due to technical difficulties, posting the photos will have to wait.....)
Some of the more forceful and creative chants of the march are worth sharing here, in approximate translations:
“El pueblo se cansa
de tanto pinch tranza!”
“The people are tired
Of so much fucking corruption”
“Policia, idiota, a ti tambien te explotan!”
“Police, you idiot, they are exploiting you too!”
And a special favorite, when passing restaurants in the street:
“Mesero consciente, envena el presidente!”
“Waiter of conscience, poison the president!”
Earlier in the day, an event of a very different tone: a group of Hopi Indians had run from their homeland in Arizona all the way to Mexico City, and at noon they arrived in front of the National Museum of Anthropology where they were welcomed by a festive group of Nahuas, Aztec dancers and other indigenas and no-indigenas from all parts of Mexico. The Hopis initiated a ceremony celebrating the sacred nature of water, where indigenous people from many regions had brought water from their homelands and mixed it together in a blessing for all the world’s water.
After the ceremony I interviewed Angel Martinez, a member of the Union of National Water Workers – la coordinadora en defensa del caracter publico del agua. Some of what he shared with me:
“The quality of water service in Mexico is terrible, and you can see it in the high indices of water-borne illnesses and even cancer in every state in Mexico. Apart from diarrheal diseases – the main cause of death in children in every state, we are finding high rates of cancer from heavy metals in the water in quantities that you Gringos would find terrifying…The President of the National Water Commision – CONAGUA – earns $130,000 pesos a year, he lives in a giant house in a wealthy neighborhood, and he has the nerve to tell us ‘the people have to pay a higher price for water services if they want higher quality water.’ Well, if we lower his salary and move him to the neighborhoods where most of us live, we could also improve the quality of water.
The struggle over water between 1918 – the Mexican Revolution – and 1988 was very hidden. The PRI [the government party that ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century] has always used water to divide the people and advance its political agenda. For example, the local PRI government would give one part of a municipality a public water utility ‘for PRIISTAS’ and then tell the rest of the people, ‘if you want water, you can have it, just vote for the PRI.’
“With President Fox the situation remains the same – everything is for sale, and if you want to be part of the power structure, it’s simple – just go along with the politics of selling everything…”
The Coordinadora [Water Worers’ Union] has tried to raise awareness of the water issue by organizing workshops and for a. This January we organized the first Assembly in Defense of of Land and Water and Against Privatization. What is it we hope to achieve? We want to make it known that our water is being privatized in a silent, underground way. It is not lie electricity or oil, where the entire system is simply sold off in the light of day to private companies. In the case of water, CONAGUA gives concessions to industries as part of their manner of working – this is seen as absolutely normal. They will concession a local water utility or a water source to the beer industry, the paper industry, the textile industry and others, and these are not short term concessions – these are concessions that last from 20 to 70 years. Also, the tourist industry, the bottled water industry and others always take precedent over public water utilities.
"The World Water Forum is an event that is attempting to privatize water. The organizers of the WWF think they are coming here to tell Mexico how to privatize water. But what is going to happen is that the Mexican government is going to say, no, let us show YOU how it’s done, without people even realizing!”
Posted by jeff at 06:29 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2006
Whose Right is the right Right?
TODAY, AS THE WORLD WATER FORUM BEGINS, a large protest march will be held by Mexican and international activists to call attention to the exclusionary nature of the Forum. Here is a press release sent out by the organizers of the alternative forum. After the press release, some commentary….
PRESS RELEASE
MARCH 13th, 2006
International Grassroots Activists Join Forces to Create an
Alternative to the 4th World Water Forum
Hundreds of organizations promote community water events to defend water as a human right
A massive outcry in defense of water for people and the planet is brewing. As
official governmental bodies, influential world players such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, and some of the largest global water and energy
corporations prepare for the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City, grassroots
organizations are creating an alternative space to hear the voices of people who have been
shut-out of the “official” Forum.
Between March 14th and March 22nd, thousands of people will join open forums,
seminars, workshops, protests and cultural events to defend the fundamental human right
to clean, affordable water. These events call for water to be recognized as part of the
global commons and call for new visions of community and public management of water.
Rallies in Defense of Water have been organized by and for indigenous and
campesino organizations, community groups, human rights groups, academics, trade
unions, students, grassroots organizations, women’s groups, public health advocates, and
social movements from within Mexico. The events highlight the voices of those who face
a dire global water crisis daily - a lack of adequate sanitation, rising water rates, and
displacement from dams. However, many of these communities have successfully built
an alternative vision that puts health and human rights before profits, and they have built
local, community-based institutions to defend this vision.
Unfortunately, few of these institutions, groups and visions are represented inside
the Fourth World Water Forum. International groups have been shocked by the lack of
cooperation on behalf of the Fourth World Water Forum and the Mexican government to
incorporate alternative viewpoints in the program and activities of the official planning.
The Fourth World Water Forum is dominated by corporate interests, North
American and European governments, agencies and international financial institutions.
Despite rhetoric of participation and inclusion, the registration fee of $240-$600 US
dollars excludes public participation at the Forum. International activists have faced a
lack of support from both conference convenors and the Mexican government in
obtaining visas, effectively excluding activists from attendance.
In contrast, private corporations and groups such as the World Water Council
have played a strong role in the conference planning. The Council is a private think tank
headed by the CEO of a subsidiary of the transnational water giant Suez. Conference
convenors have continued to promote privatization, despite numerous examples of
private sector failures over the past year, from Argentina to Bolivia, and community
opposition to private sector involvement.
“Over the last 10 years, the privatisation of water has been a disaster for the
world’s poor – causing rate hikes, poor service, and water cutoffs. The movers and
shakers within the Fourth World Water Forum need to hear from those civil society
groups around the world who have been struggling against the corporate control of water
resources,” says Tamsyn East from the World Development Movement, which has been
fighting European governments who promote privatization around the world.
Because of these failures, international grassroots activists present at the
alternative events have a deep and growing revulsion to any attempts to place control
over water in the hands of transnational corporations, governments and international
organizations. Activists have seen the failure of these global water players to secure the
fundamental human right of safe, clean, affordable water for all.
Rallies in Defense of Water condemn the Fourth World Water Forum for
promoting water as a negotiable commodity to be bought and sold on the international
marketplace. The alternative events condemn the exclusionary nature of the official
Forum. In response and offering a truly democratic alternative, international grassroots
activists are bringing together people from across the world to defend water as a common
good and a public trust for all people and for the planet.
The Mexican movement, Asamblea Nacional en Defensa del Agua y la Tierra y
en contra de su privatización has spearheaded the organizing efforts in Mexico City.
"The Fourth World Water Forum says its theme is "local actions," but they have not even
helped local groups right here in Mexico, the host country, participate. There is an urgent
need to create alternative spaces for groups to express their struggles and solutions," says
Brenda Rodríguez, the spokeswoman of Coalición de Organizaciones por el Derecho de
Agua, which is a founder and active member of the Asemblea.
IF THIS PRESS RELEASE APPEARS TO POLARIZE THE TWO SIDES – the Official Forum and the Alternative Forum – that polarization reflects what seems to be the reality on the ground – two events in opposition to one another.
The underlying truth is in fact much more subtle – many of the participants in the official forum, including UN bodies and NGO’s, have the best of intentions and are doing important work to provide equitable and sustainable access to water. Many groups and agencies involved in the forum are promoting such decentralized, locally accesible technologies as ecological sanitation systems, simple rope pumps to lift water from shallow wells, and low-cost ceramic water filters, as well as community education strategies intended to develop the capacity of ordinary people to manage and control their wate and sanitation systems. Many participants have traveled from all over the developing world seeking an audience for their small-scale local water initiatives. But many other participants, and the organizers, do not share the philosophy of empowerment that lies behind the best of these initiatives. And the fact that the World Water Council is deeply corporate and the Forum is sponsored by the likes of Suez and Coca Cola, the fact that registration for the forum has been absurdly difficult, insulting, and expensive for small NGO’s (the $600 fee is 4 times the monthly income of a tyocial Mexican worker), and the fearful stance taken by the Mexican Government towards the alternative forum, have all contributed to the polarization.
My first morning in Mexico City, taking a taxi across town, I noticed a gathering of riot police in full gear near the Monument to the Revolution. Not assuming that their presence had anything to do with the forum, but with some local workers’ strike or other issue, I asked the driver if he knew what this was about. He said, “There’s going to a big demonstration by the ‘globalphobicos’” – the cute Mexcian term for ‘anti-globalization activists.’ In short, he meant they were there to deal with me and a few thousand of my closest friends.
“Do you expect it will get violent?” I asked him.
“I expect it will,” he said.
So, this is the tone of events outside the Water Forum in Mexico City.
Aside from some cracked skulls (tune in tomorrow…) the challenge facing the alternative forum is one of trying to present a clear message. Unfortunately, the tendency towards polarization, combined with the corporate sector’s careful framing of the issues, skews the message so as to make it entirely mystifying.
What we are here to promote -- the Human Right to Water -- seems simple enough. But, using all the classic cooptation strategies they have so succesfully perfected, the corporate sponsors of the World Water Forum are also promoting ‘the Right to Water” -- by which they mean their right to sell water and our right to buy it. But the distinction is far too subtle for the Press to get. So, what you will see in the media, perhaps, is that several thousand “globaliphobicos” – the world-fearing anti-development anarchists who oppose everything and support nothing – are, for entirely mysterious reasons, violently opposed to a Forum which only intends to do good.
Somehow, what has been intended by some organizers to be “an alternative voice” has become a battle between “our human rights” and “their human rights.” Ultimately, such a conflict serves nobody. Rather, ultimately such a conflict serves the corporate sector, which thrives on public ignorance and misinformation.
WHAT IS AT STAKE?
Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute has pointed out that, if no action is taken to improve water and sanitation access worldwide, as many as 135 million people will die from water-related causes by the year 2020. Even if the UN’s Millenium Development Goals are met – highly unlikely given current funding commitments – between 36 and 72 million people will die by 2020.
The necessity for a major shift in priorities is needed, which is why a Human Right to Water is essential. While the corporate sector claims to hold the answer, in terms of increased efficiency of water services, the facts do not bear this out. In most places where public water services have been privatized, water rates have doubled and even tripled. The corporations “providing” this water argue that “increased pricing leads to increased efficiency and increased conservation.” But, for the majority of the world’s people who lack access to even the basic amounts of water needed for health, conservation of water is neither the problem nor the solution. The solution is equitable access and assurance that basic needs will be met before corporate greed.
Some statistics on the lack of equity in access to water:
• In 1994, when Indonesia was hit with a major drought, residents' wells ran dry, but Jakarta's golf courses, which cater to wealthy tourists, continued to receive 1,000 cubic meters per course per day.
• A family in the top fifth income groups in Peru, the Dominican Republic, or Ghana is, respectively, three, six, or twelve times more likely to have water connected by pipe to the home than a family in the bottom fifth in those countries.
• In Lima, Peru, poor people may pay a private vendor as much as $3 for a cubic meter of water, which they must then collect by bucket and which is often contaminated.
• The more affluent, pay 30 cents per cubic meter for treated water provided through the taps in their houses.
• In Dhaka, Bangladesh, squatters pay water rates that are twelve times higher than what the local utility charges.
• In Lusaka, Zambia, low-income families pay, on average, half their household income on water.
• Austin, Texas' industrial water rates are less than two-thirds of what residents pay.
• For its Rio Rancho facility in New Mexico, Intel recently received a tax subsidy of $8 billion via an industrial revenue bond and an additional $250 million in tax credits and other subsidies.
• In the maquiladora zones of Mexico clean water is so scarce that babies and children drink Coca-Cola and Pepsi instead.
• During a drought crisis in northern Mexico in 1995, the government cut water supplies to local farmers while ensuring emergency supplies to the mostly foreign controlled industries of the region.
WHENCE WATER EQUITY?
What is needed to provide better water access to the world’s poor is not a command and control strategy of centralized, for-profit water services, but massive investment in community-scale water systems, education and training to build the capacity of ordinary people to provide for community water needs, and sanctions against industries that abuse or contaminate common water resources.
Tune in next time to find out how much closer, or further away, we are to realizing these goals….
Posted by jeff at 06:33 AM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2006
Welcome to the Water Wars
The siting of the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City is brilliantly absurd, and absurdly brilliant, for at least two reasons.
First, there is Mexico City itself: a mythic metropolis that represents all of the most intractable ills of the modern mega-city: it is the crime-ridden and corrupt hub of a nation where modernity still sits uncomfortably alongside ancient traditions and lifeways; it is tremendously overpopulated (estimates seem to vary between 8 and 18 and 23 million people, depending on your source and, I suppose, on whether you measure the part or the whole) with a significant portion of the population living in informal slums, and another significant portion living in luxurious mansions; it is incredibly polluted, and set in a deep valley where the smog sits unmoving for days and weeks at a time, turning your skin black with grime by the end of the day; and, perhaps most significantly for the water issue, it is a place where the naturally abundant ground water has been treated to all of the most illogical and massive management errors possible.
Once an island in a vast lake, Tenochtitlan was captured and conquered by the Spanish in 1521. Observers at the time, noting the city’s canals, aqueducts, floating gardens, dikes and bridges, called Tenochtitlan the Venice of the New World. But the Spanish Crown did not want a Venice, nor did they want to recognize a city more splendid than any in Europe – so they used slave labor to fill and drain the lakes, and to raze the surrounding forests. Standing in the Zocalo today, the vast plaza at the heart of the city, you would never dream that this was once an island of floating jungles, rather than an island of asphalt.
In the centuries since, the valley has been paved over and the groundwater drawn down so severely that parts of the city are now sinking at a rate of 20 inches a year. The more water is used, the more the city sinks, and the city is now drawing much of its water from aquifers hundreds of miles away, pumped over the mountains at great cost.
If any urban center represents a failure to cope sustainably with water issues, it is Mexico City.
The other reason why the World Water Forum is perfectly situated here is because prior to becoming the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox was President of Coca Cola Mexico. Thus beholden to the beverage that is second only to water in global consumption – known to the Zapatistas as “the black water of imperialism” – President Fox knows a thing or two about Public-Private Partnerships.
WHAT IS THE WORLD WATER FORUM?
For anyone outside of the Forum, it would be easy to believe that the event -- which will be held March 16 - 22 here in Mexico City -- is a UN-led international forum held for the good of us all. And while the "good of us all" part may be in the rhetoric of the World Water Council, the body in charge of the forum, the issue is much more complicated. Over the course of the week I hope to explore the meaning and the issues behind the Forum as well as to document the alternative events that will be taking place simultaneously and which I -- ever the objective documentary journalist -- will be taking part in.
In essence, this next week in Mexico City will contain two major events -- the World Water Forum itself (WWF), sponsored and run by the corporate water sector, and the Days in Defense of Water, sponsored and run by a coalition of Mexican and international ngo's and civil society groups, many of whom are loudly boycotting the WWF.
WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT
A major field of contention at the 4th World Water Forum is the question of water as a human right. At the second and third World Water Fora, the World Water Council was adamant in its refusal to recognize water as a right, taking the position instead that water is a human need – which then can be filled by the corporate water sector. Much headway has been made since then, with even the World Water Council using the language of Rights, though what is behind the rhetoric remains to be seen. Maude Barlow, a key figure in the global water struggle, co-author of the book Blue Gold, and a recent recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, has written a brief history of the Wolrd Water Forum and its civil society opposition that can be found here:
http://www.blueplanetproject.net/cms_publications/TheWorldWaterForum.pdf
Maude Barlow has also written another document, clarifying some of the issues behind water as a right, which can be found here:
http://www.blueplanetproject.net/cms_publications/TRWEng.pdf
Water is not enshrined in the United Nations Charter or in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because at the time those documents were drafted, it was hardly imaginable that clean water would become so scarce so quickly. In the last several years, much work has been done to clarify when and how the right to water does exist, largely through interpreting other rights, such as the Right to Life, the Right to Food, and the Rights of the Child. In 2002, General Comment 15 was adopted by the United Nations, emphasizing the right to water as the cornerstone of all other rights, and calling for water to be treated as a social and cultural good, not primarily an economic good.
Why all the fuss about rights? Because, with increasing water scarcity and the expanding role of private corporations in owning and operating water infrastructure, public control of water, and the assurance that all people will be allowed access to at least the minimum amount of water needed for a healthy and dignified life has become increasingly urgent. The United Nations has made water (and the accompanying issue of sanitation) a priority by drafting the Millenium Development Goals, which, among other things, aim to halve the number of people without access to safe water and sanitation by the year 2015. But how these goals will be reached is a controversial issue. The corporate sector sees its role as ensuring that these goals are met, and reaping huge profits along the way. But the many civil society actors organized to build alternatives to privatization insist that public control of water is the only way to ensure equity.
Some statistics on the privatization of water:
• At the largest scale, private water companies build, own, and operate water systems around the world with annual revenues of approximately $300 billion, excluding revenues for sales of bottled water.
• There are ten major corporate players now delivering fresh water services for profit. Between them, the three biggest -- Suez and Vivendi [recently renamed Veolia Environment] of France and RWE-AG of Germany -- deliver water and wastewater services to almost 300 million customers in over 100 countries.
• Although less than 10 percent of the world's water systems are currently under private control, at the rate private corporations are expanding, the top three alone will control over 70 percent of the water systems in Europe and North America in a decade.
• Vivendi earned $5 billion a decade ago in its water-related revenues; by 2002, it had increased to over $12 billion.
• RWE, which moved into the world market with its acquisition of Britain's Thames Water, increased its water revenue to 9,786 percent in 10 years.
• The annual revenues for the three biggest water corporations in 2001 were almost $160 billion and growing at ten percent a year -- outpacing the economies of many of the countries in which they operate.
• The World Bank has been the principle financer of privatization, lending about $20 billion to water supply projects over the last decade; the majority of World Bank loans for water in the last five years have required the conversion of public systems to private as a condition for the transaction.
• When Bolivia privatized their water systems, as a result of a World Bank initiative involving a Bechtel subsidiary, the price of water tripled.
• During the first eight years of Suez subsidiary, Aguas Argentinas S.A’s contract to provide water and sewage services to Buenos Aires, the company earned a 19 percent profit rate on its average net worth.
• Water rates, which the company said would be reduced by 27 percent, actually rose 20 percent. And Aguas Argentinas reneged on its contractual obligations to build a new sewage treatment plant; as a result, over 95 percent of the city's sewerage is now dumped directly into the Rio del Plata River.
• The government of South Africa has cut off water supplies to over 10 million people in the last two years because they could not afford to pay for their newly privatized service -- despite a constitutional guarantee of access to water for all.
• Close to 20 percent of municipal water systems in Mexico are now privatized.
• Since water services were privatized in France, customer fees have increased by 150 percent.
• The government of France reports that the post privatization drinking water of over five million people was contaminated
• Public Services International (PSI) reports that in England, between 1989 (the year water was privatized) and 1995, there was a 106 percent increase in the rate charged to customers, while the profits of the companies increased by 692 percent.
• The salary of the highest paid director of North West Water increased by 708 percent.
• As a result of these price hikes, the number of customers who have had their water disconnected has risen by 50 percent since privatization.
The World Water Council has pronounced its intentions with this year’s forum to be local control and participation. But one of the heads of the Water Council, Rene Coulomb, also happens to be President of Suez, one of the top three water companies in the world. Between Suez, Coca Cola, and the other corporate players running this show, it is little surprise that the 4th World Water Forum is expected to be contentious.
If things go according to plan, the next installments of this blog will be live reporting from the Days in Defense of Water in Mexico City, running from March 15 to March 22.
Posted by jeff at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)