Subject:
water as a kind of petroleum for free trade purposes
Date:
Mon, 19 Jun 2000 00:26:15 -0500 (CDT)
From:
MichaelP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization:
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To:
undisclosed-recipients:;
<Describing the Washington-based bank's water privatisation reforms as an
"organised theft of water from the poor", Shiva added: "the moment you let
the market determine the situation, all that will happen is that the
swimming pool of the rich will get a higher priority over the drinking
water of the poor".>
==========================
DEVELOPMENT: Poorest Countries Call For Right to Water
http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/june00/16_56_031.html
DEVELOPMENT: Poorest Countries Call For Right to Water
By Gareth Harding
BRUSSELS, Jun 12 (IPS) - Activists from seven of the world's poorest
countries have called for access to water to be made a fundamental human
right and brought under the democratic control of those dependent on its
use.
Meeting in Brussels last week, the so-called P7 Summit - which groups
together politicians, academics, aid workers and environmental campaigners
- issued a declaration roundly condemning the use of water as a commodity.
Treating water as a kind of petroleum to be traded according to market
principles would lead to further environmental degradation, wasteful and
inefficient farming methods, greater water poverty and an increased risk
of conflict, the conference concluded.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 1.7 billion people do
not have access to drinking water and half the world's population lacks
access to sanitary services.
Malin Falkenmark, of the Swedish International Water Institute, said this
problem was compounded by the fact that rampant population growth requires
more water to be diverted to food production, which uses 50-100 times more
water than households.
Falkenmark said that there was an urgent need for politicians to address
the "unavoidable trade-offs between feeding the population and protecting
aquatic ecosystems".
Honorary President of P7, Vandana Shiva, an Indian activist, said that
droughts and famines were less the result of natural disasters and
population growth and more often due to World Bank funding for cash crops
requiring huge amounts of water.
Twenty years ago the water table in drought-stricken areas of northern
India was 20 feet (about 6.5 metres) below the surface, but now wells were
being dug to 2000 feet to irrigate thirsty crops such as cotton, said
Shiva, director of the Indian Research Foundation for Science, Technology
and Ecology.
Describing the Washington-based bank's water privatisation reforms as an
"organised theft of water from the poor", Shiva added: "the moment you let
the market determine the situation, all that will happen is that the
swimming pool of the rich will get a higher priority over the drinking
water of the poor".
Mamadou Diouf, P7 coordinator from Senegal, also noted the "desperate
scramble for profit" water companies were engaged in. Diouf said that in
West African countries privatisation had turned public into private
monopolies and national resources into those of French multinationals.
The three-day conference, which was hosted by Green members of the
European Parliament (MEPs), rejected the conclusions of the second
ministerial World Water Forum in the Hague in March this year, which
treated water primarily as an economic commodity and refused to consider
access to water as a human right.
This ran counter to the conclusions of the UN "Earth Summit" in 1992,
which declared that "all peoples.have the right to access to drinking
water in quantities and of quality equal to their basic needs".
The P7 meet concluded that "all living beings have a right to water as
water is part of humanity's common heritage".
Instead of private companies monopolising the distribution of water, the
conference called for the management of water services to remain in the
public domain.
"The best managers of water are citizens and local communities," it
stated.
Undemocratic control over water leads to conflicts, several speakers
pointed out.
Fadia Daibes Murad, of the Palestinian Water Authority, said water was one
of the main reasons for the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Most of
the water in the mountainous area of the Palestinian water basin was being
expropriated by the Israelis for cash crop production, said Murad.
"If the water problem is not solved there will be no peace in the area,"
he said.
Imeru Tamerat, of Action Aid Ethiopia, took a more optimistic view,
arguing that "water basins have more often been the source of cooperation
than conflict".
The 10 countries in the Nile basin were increasingly working together to
agree common rules, he said. However, the water expert did say that huge
demands were being put on the river because of population growth and the
over-use of resources by Egypt.
Water knows no political boundaries. Therefore we need to challenge the
belief in the national ownership of water," he said.
Calling for a new form of "water democracy," the conference declared that
parliamentary assemblies should be set up to manage large river basins and
a World Water Parliament should be established to lay down common rules
for the management of water resources.
The P7 decided to launch a world campaign for the right to water and to
present a report pleading for this at the tenth anniversary of the Rio
Earth Summit.
They also called for a group to be set up to develop alternatives to the
privatisation of water and for measures to ensure sustainable and
equitable water use".
Green MEPs promised to draw up a report on global water policy for
adoption by the Strasbourg-based assembly. (END/IPS/gh/sm/00)
======================
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