7.2 - Water Is More Than A Human Need: It Is A Human Right 

Report on the 5th World Water Forum (Istanbul, Turkey)

 

The 5th World Water Forum (WWF) was held in Istanbul from the 16th to the 22nd of March, with over 20,000 attendants from 150 countries. As in previous versions of the WWF the election of the housing country was not a coincidence: Turkey is a country that is pursuing privatisation policies in water, largely in line with the EUÕs powerful water lobby and its view of water merely as an economic good. So the event is seen as a way both to reward Turkish water Neoliberal policies and to strengthen this privatisation agenda.

 

The WWF insists once again on a failed Neoliberal “solution”

This Forum, however, took place in the middle of a growing understanding of the graveness of the current crisis of water: entire regions of the planet are running out of water, what is leading to conflicts such as that of Darfur. Over 1 billion people in the world lack safe access to clean water and 25 million people in the world die every year as a result of contaminated water, including the deaths of 5,000 children per day. According to the World Health Organisation, 80% of diseases in the world can be ultimately linked to the lack of access to safe water or sanitation. In Latin America alone, around 30% of the urban population (120 million people) lack access to adequate water services and 219 million of those with household drinking water connections suffer from intermittent service. As a result, around 77,600 children die annually of diarrhoea, and water related diseases such as typhoid and cholera.

 

Privatisation of water services and facilities advocated since the 's as a magic solution to this problem, not only have failed to meet the enormous challenge posed by this crisis, but indeed has made matters worse. Wherever privatization of water services has been implemented, the result has been disaster. This is mainly because water cannot be treated as a commodity and any attempt to let the “market” and unaccountable corporations' drive to profit regulate water has ended up with millions being neglected their fundamental right to a common as essential as air in order to live.

 

Yet, in spite of this record, the WWF, as expected, once again have insisted on water privatisation. Why is this?

The WWF exposed for what it is: an illegitimate and undemocratic talk shop for big business

This is so because the WWF is just a talk shop for big business that profit on water and that look for the implementation of Neoliberal policies that speed up water privatisation. In the WWF the UN and government representatives come together with representatives of the big Multinational water companies and business lobby organisations such as the World Water Council (which ultimately controls the WWF), the Global Water Partnership and the WB, as if they were on exactly the same footing.

 

This is why in this last WWF more than ever, so many people were vocal on the illegitimate nature of this Council that took over the UN the saying on water issues. They actually pretend to have the same legitimacy as the UN, the even imitate their language and formalities, but as Maude Barlow, Senior Advisor to the UN General Assembly President on Water issues and water activist, pointed out they are not and that we “should not give them a single iota of legitimacy”.

 

But the WWF is also not democratic and elitist Ðfrom the register fee of � to the VIP arrangements, everything is designed to keep the majority of those concerned on water issues out, and even those who are in are divided into VIP people and the “riff raff”.

 

During the Istanbul WWF Police was present even in the toilets, and repression marked any attempt of pacific demonstrations against the WWF and what it represents, including the deportation of two demonstrators who unfurled a banner that read “No Risky Dams” during the inauguration of the Forum. Also on the inauguration day, hundreds of activists that have gathered out of the WWF to protest were dispersed by the Turkish police with plenty of teargas, riot sticks and water cannons. Inside the Forum there were people being censored if they were going to state that water was a human right. Why all of this repression? Because the WWF cannot take criticism for it is just not legitimate and is undemocratic beyond any possibility of reform.

 

This view is no longer a view just held by water activists, but is a view shared by an increasing number of government representatives and UN officials. The very UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escotto, in an address of March 19th intended to be read in the WWF, stated that “We must work quickly to guarantee that access to drinking water constitutes a fundamental right of all peoples” () Those who are committed to the privatization of water, making it a commodity like oil, are denying people a human right as basic as the air we breathe () The forum's orientation is profoundly influenced by private water companies. This is evident by the fact that both the president of the World Water Council and the alternate president are deeply involved with provision of private, for-profit, water services. Unsurprisingly, the reading of this statement was blocked by the World Water Council and it was read by Maude Barlow in the People's Water Forum that day, the full letter can be found at Click here

 

The Alternative Water Forum: going beyond the WWF

From the 20th to the 22nd of March, numerous water activists gathered for the Alternative Water Forum in Istanbul that became a wonderful meeting point for people from all over the world to learn about the local water struggles and the international water struggles, as well as to exchange ideas in a comradely environment. If there was any clear agreement between the diverse people participating in the Alternative Forum was on:

 

1. The need to acknowledge water as a human right and for governments to have a clear commitment to implement whatever policies are necessary in order to guarantee that this right is not just dead letter but an actual reality.

2. The understanding of water as a common, what's more than just State control of it, but actually, it implies community control of it and de-centralised community based governance structures.

3. The need to understand the deep link that binds the water problem to the environmental crisis and to the food crisis; that any change in water policies require an actual change in culture and in the way we relate not only to other people but also to nature. The struggle for water is at the same time the struggle for achieving a sustainable society.

 

Addressing the assistants, Maude Barlow called for this to be the last WWF under the auspices of the World Water Council. She urged the UN to call for a new public water forum, with civil society participation and which does not shun from stating clearly that water is a human right and not a simple human need, as the WWF did. But this is not to say that all countries are in favour of water as a human right Ðamong the most vocal opponents to water being considered as a human right during the WWF, we had the governments of the US, Egypt and Brazil, what proves that thereÕs still a long way for civil society to go in order to defeat a Neoliberal frame of mind still prevalent among top officers.

 

Renato Di Nicola, of the Italian Forum of Water Movements also stated that “the fundamental issue here is that the UN takes on its hand the right to talk of water”. And he added “this is quite a radical movement, in the sense that it goes to the root of the matter and demands for radical solutions, but at the same time, because it does not confuses partial victories for the need to struggle for the ultimate goal which is water as a common in public hands with a participatory ethos. But we have also learnt to communicate radical ideas in a language that without losing urgency looks for a broad consensus and concrete reforms”.

 

Water: Public and Participatory

During the Alternative Water Forum, many voices demanded that water, in order to become an effective human right, was in public hands with effective community control. This view was put forward in a very articulate form by Anil Naidoo, from the Council of Canadians, who explained that understanding water as a “Common” refers to the central role of communities Ðcommunities need to have control of their water services, because it is they that will be affected by decisions in relation to water and not people sitting in decision-making bodies miles away. Communities, he said, can be better managers than governments and corporations. So when we talk about ÔpublicÕ water we are referring to more than State control, but we are referring to the community taking an active and creating role in finding solutions to the water crisis (that respect local cultures, environment and use local technologies on a necessarily de-centralized model) and taking control of its structures of governance. As Anil Naidoo reminded us, this is not something new, but something communities have always done and that has been shattered by a system that only see commons as a source to extract profit while it destroys whole communities.

 

Veteran Bolivian water activist Oscar Olivera put the record straight that ordinary people need to stop waiting for a change to happen from above, and should become active part of the solution: “We cannot remain subordinated to demand from governments that they give us rights; on the contrary, we need to learn to conquer them, we need to learn to gain them through our struggle and self-organisation”.

 

Towards a new Water Forum that acknowledges water as a human right In the end, thanks to the work of so many activists who have become a powerful pressure group representing many communities alienated from the decision making bodies that have currently the ultimate say on such a sensitive issue as water, the group of government representatives and ministers that agreed on the need to declare water a human right and to call for a new World Water Forum under the auspices of the UN expanded considerably from the bunch of countries that supported these views back in the previous WWF in Mexico.

 

The statement reading that “We recognize that access to water and sanitation is a human right and we are committed to all necessary actions for the progressive implementation of this right” was agreed by representatives of Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Venezuela. And the one reading that “We call on States to develop a global water forum within the framework of the United Nations, based on the principles of democracy, full participation, equity, transparency and social inclusion” was agreed by representatives of Benin, Bolivia, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Senegal, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

 

And this list is likely to expand. Representatives of countries such as Switzerland and Norway expressed their agreement with these statements but said that the process for adhering to them is a bit longer in their case and could not be done right there, and the African Union is considering its own adherence to these statements.

 

The most important thing is that the illegitimacy of the WWF and its sponsor, the world Water Council, has been exposed in a way much clearer than ever before. And it is not at all naïve to expect that, hopefully, this will be the last WWF of its type.

 

After this week of success, the water activists can be well satisfied. But we still need to remember that the struggle for making the UN take a definite stand on water as a human right is still a hard one and that from there to implementing this right and turn it into a reality, will be an even harder one. But the results of this conference prove that we are on the right track and that giant steps have been taken by a movement that has grown to a stage in which it can be a constructive force to build an alternative world around the respect to water and life.

 

José Antonio Gutiérrez Latin American Solidarity Centre

 

* The final declaration of the Istanbul Alternative Water Forum can be found in the following link: Water forum declaration

 

 

 

Back to Water Access for all

Back to Issues

Back Home