“We need to build water democracy, not water markets. We need to defend the rights of communities, not corporations. We need to conserve water, not consume it wastefully or destroy it.” Vandana Shiva, Indian water activist.
It’s sometimes easy to forget that water - such an apparently abundant resource for those who have it on tap – is scarce in many regions of the world. Water is essential to life in all forms: without water, death takes only a matter of days. Without rain or irrigation water, crops fail and biodiversity dwindles. Without clean drinking water and sanitation, diseases and sickness
spread rapidly.
Water’s importance has been recognized by governments time and time again, and one aim of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. However current trends indicate that we have little chance of meeting this goal, let alone ensuring safe water for all, unless we fundamentally change our approach to the use and control of water.
Five years after the MDGs were originally agreed, 1.8 million people still die every year due to lack of hygiene, sanitation and a decent water supply. A further billion people – one in every six people on the planet – lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion still have no toilets or other forms of improved sanitation.
As springs, lakes and even seas dry up, the planet loses the freshwater ecosystems and wetlands that are critical to biodiversity and help to control erosion and store excess water. In addition, export-oriented agriculture is increasing levels of irrigation, causing erosion and increased soil salinity which eventually makes the soil unsuitable for agriculture. All over the world, chemical and human waste is increasingly seeping into previously clean groundwater sources.
Water as an economic good
However, water’s scarcity in some regions of the world is also turning it into an immensely desirable commodity, and water companies have now succeeded in persuading most governments to adopt an overwhelmingly commercial approach. In 1992, one of the four guiding principles agreed in the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development was that: “Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.”
By reducing water to an “economic good”and further categorizing the water economy as a “market economy”, this approach makes water privatization and commodification inevitable. By ignoring the ecological and hydrological limits of water availability, and allowing water access and water distribution to be driven by insatiable markets, the world’s water crisis is likely to deepen and
access to water will become even more inequitable.
Not a drop to drink
Over 70% of the world’s water is now used for crop irrigation, and 60% of that is wasted. Frequently, these crops are destined for export to wealthy consumers, and not for local consumption. In the San Francisco Valley in Brazil, for example, water resources are primarily used to irrigate fruit and sugar cane for export. A further 22% of the world’s water is used by industry, with just 8% remaining for human consumption.
Some governments have teamed up with the private sector in order to solve these problems, through ‘public-private partnerships’. They argue that by bringing in private investment and know-how they can improve the situation without spending public funds or threatening domestic economic growth. Business is happy with this approach: in the 1990s, water companies expanded, merged and diversified to become among the world’s biggest and most powerful transnational corporations. Suez, RWE and Veolia Environnement are among the largest, along with beverage companies Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Danone, which now dominate the rapidly growing and highly profitable bottled water market.
The carrot for these companies is provided through the WTO and various other trade and investment negotiations. Governments, led by the European Union, are trying to use these negotiations to lever open and lock in new water collection and distribution markets for their transnationals. There is, however, plenty of evidence to suggest that this approach doesn’t work. As the Transnational Institute and Corporate Europe Observatory concluded in a 2005 report: “Almost without exception, global water corporations have failed to deliver the promised improvements and have, instead, raised water tariffs far beyond the reach of poor households.” Companies need to make a profit, which means that poor people who may have previously had access to free or cheaper water must pay. The principle of ‘universal access’ is also being abandoned. When the water commons are enclosed, the poor and the marginalized become further excluded.
Unhealthy water flows
Water is increasingly being exported across national boundaries. Canada, for example, exports water to the United States, despite growing alarm about the environmental impacts that this will have on the Great Lakes. Similarly, the Plan Puebla Panama investment project will increase access to freshwater resources as well as new markets in Central American countries. Companies such as the American Beverage Company (also known as AmBev, the world’s fifth largest brewer and Brazil’s leading beverage company) are the main beneficiaries. Similarly, the Initiative for the Integration of South America’s Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA) could allow foreign bottled water companies to access the subterranean waters of the Acuífero Guaraní in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. This potential drain on freshwater resources could eventually reduce the local availability of freshwater.
The impacts of trade liberalization upon water urgently need to be recognized and reversed. Access to water should be fully recognized as a human right, as suggested by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in November 2002. Water should be removed from trade liberalization negotiations, and governments must remain free to manage and deliver water as a public service. A public water sector should include both community-managed systems as well as public utilities like municipal water supply and irrigation for sustainable food production to meet local needs. Exports of water for wasteful industrial and agricultural use and unnecessary consumption need to be curbed, freeing up water resources to provide clean water for human consumption and sanitation, the development of fair and sustainable local economies, and the conservation of vital ecosystems.
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WATER WOES IN TOGO
Kokou Elorm Amegadze, Friends of the Earth Togo
Togolese people, especially those living in the interior of the country, have a range of problems relating to water. In some cases there are serious water shortages, while in other areas water is plentiful but mismanaged and heavily polluted.
Until 2003, the production, supply and purification of water in Togo was undertaken exclusively by La Régie Nationale des Eaux du Togo. In 2004, however, management of the country’s water supplies was transferred to the Société Togolaise des Eaux, no longer a state monopoly with exclusive rights relating to drinking water and waste water treatment, but a more commercial and results-oriented company.
This has resulted in people having to pay for water from pumps that was previously free. To date, privatization does not appear to have increased the number of urban consumers having access to water and sanitation. Furthermore, turning water into an economic good makes it increasingly unlikely that supplies to poor, unprofitable rural areas will be improved.
The people of Togo urgently need improved water supplies and sanitation, but privatization and the possible liberalization of services do not appear to offer viable solutions. Friends of the Earth Togo is focusing on alternative ways forward, including public education about water management and the building of free public fountains.
Water solutions in the village of Kovié Sévého
People living in the village of Kovié Sévého, some 30 kilometres from Lomé, struggle to collect water. Although most houses have their own water tanks, rusted roofs and gutters mean that the quantity and quality of water collected during the rainy seasons is very poor. Some cisterns are located on the ground to catch surface water, but this is heavily polluted. In the dry season, villagers have to rely on the waters of the river Zio some ten kilometres away.
The people of Kovié Sévého suffer from increased levels of disease and dehydration. There is not enough water for bathing and cleaning. Women and children, who are primarily responsible for collecting water from the river, are often very tired. There are frequent brawls around the water points.
However, the villagers have made efforts to solve their problems. Those that can afford to maintain their roofs sell their ‘drinkable’water to others at low rates. In addition, a marshy basin has been built nearby to retain additional water.
TRANSNATIONAL POWER IN LATIN AMERICA
Paola Visca, Third World Economics
Many of the largest transnational companies now operating in Latin America are dedicated to extracting and selling the region’s natural resources. A recent survey by the magazine América Economía of the 500 largest companies active in the region showed that over half of the twenty most profitable companies were dedicated to the export of natural resources, with hydrocarbons being the main focus. Five of the top twenty companies were oil companies – Petrobas, Repsol/YPF, Esso, Texaco and Royal Dutch/Shell – and companies trading in hydrocarbons had sales of more than US$250 billion. Other key natural resource-related sectors include steel, cement, food and forest products.
PEOPLE'S WATER POWER IN URUGUAY
Sebastian Valdomir and Alberto Villarreal, REDES/Friends of the Earth Uruguay
On 31 October 2004, more than 64% of Uruguay’s population voted to establish water as a basic human right, to retain the public provision of water and sanitation, and to ensure sustainable and participatory water management. In other words, they voted to ensure that their water services are managed by the people for the people.
Uniting to defend Water and Life
This was an overwhelming rejection of the privatization of water foisted upon Uruguay by the IMF and the World Bank and by the liberalization of water services planned in the WTO and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. REDES/Friends of the Earth Uruguay, public water unions, local community organizations and others had worked in the Commission in Defense of Water and Life to achieve this victory.
The Uruguayan government had been granting concessions to water companies, including subsidiaries of Suez (Aguas de la Costa) and Aguas de Bilbao (Uragua), to help meet the country’s sanitation requirements. However, the companies never delivered on their contractual commitments for sanitation; the quality of the service they provided was poor; and water and sanitation tariffs were extremely high.
When they were rejected by the Uruguayan people, the companies turned to international treaties to force the new government - which had supported the water vote - to change track. Suez and Aguas de Bilbao threatened to sue the Uruguayan government for millions of dollars in compensation, claiming that the results of the vote breached their contracts under existing bilateral investment treaties with France and Spain. Faced with the threat of multi-million dollar payouts, and at the same time holding the record for the world’s highest per capita level of indebtedness (as a percentage of GDP), Uruguay was in a difficult position. The government initially capitulated, allowing the companies to continue to operate until 2015.
Public opposition finally brought about a more forceful approach. Eventually, Aguas de Bilbao’s concession was cancelled due to repeated breaches of contract. The company dropped a planned lawsuit against the government and agreed to leave the country in October 2005, although it was allowed to retrieve financial guarantees it had made. In the case of Suez’s subsidiary, the government may ultimately buy the corporation out.
While these settlements are less than ideal, they demonstrate the power of collective opposition. Environmentalists, trade unions and local community organizations can express their opposition through plebiscites and popular referendums, and confront the power of corporations by exercising direct democracy. This is an effective first step in rolling back the power of corporations.
The above article is part of the report "The tyranny of free trade: Wasted natural wealth and lost livelihoods" released by Friends of the Earth International for the Sixth WTO Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong, 13-18 December 2005.
See full report in PDF document
More information on WTO and environmental issues on:
http://www.foei.org/wto/index.html
