[Mb-civic] Water Rights

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Published on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 by OneWorld.net
Groups Demand Water Rights, Cite Millions of 
Deaths
by Niko Kyriakou
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0322-07.htm

CARACAS - The right to safe water must be enshrined in international 
law and policed by the United Nations if millions of people are to be 
spared death from want of water or from water-borne diseases, 
activists told governments and business at international talks ending 
Wednesday.

A coalition of groups opposed to efforts to give private enterprise 
control over water resources and distribution systems called on 
governments attending the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City 
to agree a formal declaration at the nascent UN Human Rights Council 
that would stiffen their commitment to ensuring basic water rights.

Officials from 140 countries were set to issue a broad declaration on 
World Water Day, but will stop short of declaring a universal right to 
the precious resource for which two thirds of humanity face uncertain 
supplies.(AFP/Shariq Alam)

The groups--including U.S.-based Bread for the World, the Coalition of 
Mexican Organizations for the Right to Water (COMDA), and the 
Council of Canadians--defined those rights as the ability to access 
sufficient and affordable clean water in or near the home, school or 
workplace.

They blamed violations of those rights for a UN-reported annual toll of 
three million deaths from diseases related to dirty or unsafe water. The 
world body also reported that 2.6 billion people--about 40 percent of 
the world's population--lack access to toilets or latrines.

Activists further pressed governments to establish an international 
mechanism to monitor countries' efforts to guarantee the right to water. 
Possibilities included a UN Special Rapporteur or advisor to the UN 
Secretary General.

Such measures are necessary because ''billions of people are unable 
to hold governments, corporations and international organizations 
accountable when they deliberately neglect the poor, such as people 
living in informal settlements, and when they violate the right of water 
users to participate in decision making on how their services are 
managed, as has been seen in many enforced privatizations of water 
services,'' said Scott Leckie, executive director of the Geneva-based 
Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, a coalition member.

The right to water already is enshrined in international covenants and 
UN resolutions but the United States, Canada, and other influential 
countries have shunned the documents, activists said, adding that in 
recent years, rather than strengthen public provision of water, 
numerous governments have favored efforts to privatize water 
systems.

That has proven controversial. Popular protest and government 
pressure in Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia, have pushed out private 
owners of water distribution facilities widely viewed as inhibiting public 
access to water by charging too much for the resource.

Delegates at the weeklong talks in Mexico City got a demonstration of 
the intensity of opposition to privatization when activists mobilized 
massive street protests.

Several advocacy groups urged stepped up grassroots efforts to wrest 
control over water.

''There is a silent holocaust occurring around the world caused by lack 
of water and sanitation. People are dying because the international aid 
community and national governments are not listening to the poor or 
looking at the overwhelming evidence,'' said Barbara Frost, chief 
executive of international charity WaterAid.

''Pressure must continue on donor and recipient governments, but we 
also need to encourage bottom-up solutions. If service providers are 
not held to account, the poor and the socially excluded will never 
achieve their water and sanitation rights. The groundwork has been 
laid. Citizens' action needs to become a movement,'' Frost added.

According to her organization, such a movement would prove essential 
in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving, by 2015, 
the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water 
and basic sanitation.

WaterAid, in a report released at the conference, touted several 
community projects it carried out with partners in Africa and Asia that it 
said succeeded in increasing public access to clean water. Citizen 
pressure in Kathmandu, Nepal, forced authorities there to reduce 
water charges and to cut the connection tariff by 84 percent, for 
example.

As part of a WaterAid project in Kampala, Uganda, community 
members in impoverished areas mapped rubbish dumps, water points, 
drainage channels, and latrines in a bid to help the government there 
carry out projects to improve water supply and sanitation.

The March 16-22 forum in Mexico City attracted some 11,000 
participants from more than 100 countries, said organizers at the 
World Water Council, a France-based umbrella group for multinational 
water companies and other businesses, universities, and non-
governmental organizations.

Copyright © 2006 OneWorld.net

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