In 2005, the United Nations Human Development Programme stated “If you live in a slum in Manila, you pay more for your water than people living in London.”
This makes sense to me because when I lived in Tanzania--Water cost a lot--even before privatisation.
I grew up collecting rain water, celebrating when it rained and experiencing very brief periods of rain. Discussing when to plant a neighbours grain stores based on when it might possibly rain has been something that I have grown up with. I know what happens when there is a drought, and how families relied on the crops that they planted to survive. Children and women carried buckets of waters for kilometers home, people went to the river to wash (themselves and clothes). Water wasn't clean. It needed to be boiled before you drank it. I knew water borne diseases such as Cholera or Dysentery or Bilharzia. I saw all of this as normal. This was life.
The impact of the privatisation of water was to make things worse. I saw the hardships and struggles people I knew and grew up with because of this. Tanzania's government following rich-countries and World Bank advice to privatized their water services but the country back a few generations in development terms. Stealing water, fights over water, illegal traders of water and suffering due to a lack of water become more widespread. These policies are having serious unacceptably negative impact. Privatization led to increased prices and lack of access, rather than increased access. Access to water became a clear indicator of poverty levels.
Government put water meters on water, charged unreasonable amounts for water, there was regularly water shortages, I used to pay attention to when the water stores ran low,we saved water in tanks, I saw rivers diverted to grow cereals (e.g Rice) for World Bank or IMF funded projects to pay back national debt, our electricity source was haphazard and depended on the water level in the dam. I saw wells being built using foreign aid for a village to have access to and a local school building walls around it and posting security guards to prevent access to that water. I saw how water springs were privatised, how a bottled water plant took off in a rural village in the rift valley and soon was supplying the whole country.
But once access to water was made prohibitively expensive. People had to work twice as hard to achieve the previous standard of life... This is wrong and cannot be justified.
Some privatization programs have produced positive results. But the overall record is not encouraging. From Argentina to Bolivia, and from the Philippines to the United States, the conviction that the private sector offers a “magic bullet” for unleashing the equity and efficiency needed to accelerate progress towards water for all has proven to be misplaced. While these past failures of water concessions do not provide evidence that the private sector has no role to play, they do point to the need for greater caution, regulation and a commitment to equity in public-private partnerships. -- 2006 United Nations Human Development Report, 2006, p.10
In Europe--it is completely different! In Ireland it rains almost daily and no one really takes water shortage seriously. Dams don't dry out...they flood. Yet the rivers are horrifically polluted and the seas are over fished. In Denmark, water was supposed to be used in moderation and people used to recycled (and if you didn't you were fined) but now they cannot afford to process their waste to the same extent. In the UK, a water shortage meant you weren't allowed to water your lawns or gardens or have water fights in the summer heat. Life and water access was completely different.
Much of the world lives without access to clean water. Privatization of water resources, promoted as a means to bring business efficiency into water service management, has instead led to reduced access for the poor around the world as prices for these essential services have risen.
In 2006, the United Nations Human Development Report states "almost 2 million children die each year for want of a glass of clean water and adequate sanitation." It notes that over 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water. But the scariest fact and most believable fact in that report (for me) was :
"1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometer, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 liters per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 liters of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.) "This report also said something that worried me (and hopefully worries you?) "the scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality, not in physical availability." The severity of the ecological crisis appears to be that we are taking water from the water sheds and aquifers (either pumping it into factories, using it for irrigation etc). Humanity as a whole is not paying attention to displacement, diversion and mass pollution of water. We need to change our mentality to water. Instead of seeing it as a only a crisis for those who don't have it--we need to think of it as a geopolitical crisis.
In May 2010, the UN produced the 3rd Global Biodiversity Outlook report which notes that water quality in freshwater ecosystems is an important biodiversity indicator, yet global data is quite lacking.What surprised me was:
More than 40% of the global river discharge is now intercepted by large dams and one-third of sediment destined for the coastal zones no longer arrives. These large-scale disruptions have had a major impact on fish migration, freshwater biodiversity more generally and the services it provides. They also have a significant influence on biodiversity in terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems.
The number of observed ‘dead zones’, coastal sea areas where water oxygen levels have dropped too low to support most marine life, has roughly doubled each decade since the 1960s. Many are concentrated near the estuaries of major rivers, and result from the buildup of nutrients, largely carried from inland agricultural areas where fertilizers are washed into watercourses. The nutrients promote the growth of algae that die and decompose on the seabed, depleting the water of oxygen and threatening fisheries, livelihoods and tourism. (p. 60)
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| Source: Diaz and Rosenberg (2008). Science. |
The Millennium Development Goals includes the need to “reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.” The World Water Forum's that I have recently only heard about have been working towards this. I read an interesting article that goes through them year by year.
Its interesting to look at extracts from their their final declarations with regard to water privatisation:
2nd World Water Forum:
“freshwater, coastal and related ecosystems are protected and improved; that sustainable development and political stability are promoted, that every person has access to enough safe water at an affordable cost to lead a healthy and productive life and that the vulnerable are protected from the risks of water-related hazards.”3rd World Water Forum:
Increased support for the private sector.
4th World Water Forum:
Noted (in final ministerial declaration) that governments should have the primary role in providing water access and related improvements. (This does not preclude the use of private companies contracted to provide the service, but highlights the importance of democratic accountability over the provision of such service.)
5th Water Forum:
Final report:http://www.worldwaterforum5.org/fileadmin/WWF5/Final_Report/WWF5_Final_Report_ENG.pdf
Some interesting links (and my sources):
Global Water Partnership:
http://www.gwp.org/en/The-Challenge/What-is-water-security/
Water.org
http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/
World Health Organisation:
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/en/
World Water Council: An International Multi-Stakeholder Platform for a Water Secure World
http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/
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