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Volume 3,  Number 7              March 16 - 22, 2003            Quezon City, Philippines


 





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Water Wars

In The Hague three years ago, a war of words broke out between corporate executives and water activists from civil society organizations over the private control of water and whether access to clean water should be recognized as a universal human right. The next battlefield in these emerging water wars will be Kyoto, where the third World Water Forum takes place on March 16-22

By Tony Clarke
IBON Features
 
Reposted by Bulatlat.com


“The wars of the 21
st century will be fought over water,” a former vice president of the World Bank, Ishmael Serageldin, declared before the dawn of the new millennium.

To a degree, Serageldin ought to know what he’s talking about. After all, he played a prominent role in crafting the World Bank strategy to use its lending policies in compelling developing countries to privatize their water services, thereby provoking outbreaks of popular resistance. When the World Bank instructed Bolivia to privatize the water services of its major cities in early 2000, the people of Cochabamba took to the streets by the tens of thousands, day after day, protesting against the private water company and their government. 

He was also chairman of the Global Water Partnership, a big business lobby organization that co-sponsors the World Water Forum (WWF) to promote the privatization of water resources and services. When the second WWF was held in The Hague three years ago, a war of words broke out between corporate executives and water activists from civil society organizations over the private control of water and whether access to clean water should be recognized as a universal human right.

The next battlefield in these emerging water wars will be Kyoto, Japan, where the third World Water Forum takes place March 16-22, 2003. Some 8,000 people are expected to participate in over 30 theme sessions. While the WWF sounds like an official United Nations sanctioned event, it is anything but. To be sure, UN officials will be in Kyoto along with government representatives of more than a 140 countries who will participate in a ministerial conference. Yet, they will not be primarily in charge of what happens in Kyoto.

Instead, the WWF is largely organized by the Global Water Partnership while the agenda and program is set by the World Water Council, a business and professional think-tank. Both organizations are dominated by the interests of the World Bank, leading corporations in the global water industry like Suez and Vivendi Universal, plus several government aid agencies [including CIDA]. Their main objective for the 3
rd WWF is to build a “consensus” in favor of the commodification and privatization of water. 

Last week, the UN itself set the stage with its first comprehensive report on the worldwide water crisis, highlighting the fact that close to 2 billion people on this planet do not have access to clean water. The solution, says the World Water Council, is to recognize water as an economic good, thereby allowing corporations to commodify water as a resource and takeover public water delivery systems on a for-profit basis.

Their method of water management is what’s been labeled the P-3 formula, namely, “private-public-partnerships”, which make it possible for corporations to takeover the running of public water services on a for-profit basis. To enforce this agenda in Kyoto, the World Bank released the Camdessus Report last week, outlining a strategy for how this corporate water management agenda could be financed through a mix of government aid and subsidies to the water industry plus loans from international finance institutions and commercial banks. 

Countering this agenda in Kyoto will be a network of water activists from civil society organizations throughout the world. Water, they maintain, is life itself on this planet. As a vital resource, water is part of the “commons” and, therefore, must not be commodified or privatized. Instead, water is a fundamental human right that should be made universally available to all people rather simply than sold to the highest bidder or distributed through market mechanisms to those who have the ability to pay.

Fortified by experience in their own countries, this international network of water activists intends to demonstrate that the P-3 model of water privatization has, for the most part, been a failure. Examples to be highlighted include attempts to privatize public water systems in cities  from Buenos Aires. Manila, Johannesburg and Puerto Rico to Accra, Jakarta, Grenoble and Atlanta, to name a few. Community battles waged on these and other fronts signify the emerging water wars.

In contrast to the P-3 model, these water advocates will propose an alternative model for water management based on “public-community-partnerships” which calls for a strengthening of the public sector along with greater citizen participation and community control.  Traditional forms of water harvesting will also be highlighted along with community-based approaches to water conservation and restoration of lakes and rivers.

Indeed, this international network of water advocates intends to challenge the World Water Council’s “manufactured consensus” on water privatization every step of the way at the WWF in Kyoto with a counter agenda for water management based on principles of conservation and equity. Moreover, they plan to show that these alternative models of water management can be financed through new strategies for public investment along with new forms of private investment.

So, on the eve of war being declared in the Gulf, the emerging water wars of the 21
st century will be put on display in Kyoto. At the center of these water wars are two contrasting visions of how this vital element of life itself is to be conserved and shared for the sake of humanity and nature on this planet. But, the battle lines drawn in Kyoto will mark a beginning, not the end, of these water wars. For, increasingly, access to clean water is becoming a life and death struggle for communities throughout the world. IBON Features/Reposted by Bulatlat.com

Tony Clark is the director of the Polaris Institute in Canada and co-author (with Maude Barlow) of Blue Gold: The Battle Against the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water (McClelland & Stewart)


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