Water for Sale: What is called for is an international code for the public’s access to a guaranteed supply of water as a basic human right.
The Fifth World Water Forum took place in Istanbul, Turkey, from March 16-22, 2009, with over 25,000 people attending, representing 182 countries. The World Water Forum, the largest water policy event in the world, is held every three years. It is organized by the World Water Council, a private think-tank based in Marseille, France. The People’s Water Forum, a global water justice movement which has referred to the World Water Forum as “false” and “corporate driven,” also gathered in Istanbul to protest the Fifth World Water Forum. In the People’s Water Forum Declaration, they sharply criticize the World Water Forum, stating that it is motivated by private interests and attempts to create the misleading illusion of an utterly false global consensus on water management. The Declaration also asks that the next water forum be organized by the UN General Assembly, calls for water to be defined as a human right, and denounces all forms of privatization and commercialization of water and sanitation services. Joining the discussion, the International Water Forum, a by-invitation-only Forum sponsored by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, and CIFAL Atlanta will be held on July 9-10 of this year to discuss global water scarcity as well as methods for establishing a sustainable water supply.
The struggle over water is certainly not a new phenomenon. Wide-scale water privatization began in the 1990s and was often stipulated as a condition for assistance from international financial aid institutions, primarily the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Since then, there has been ongoing conflict over water management, with Latin America at the center of many of the models for resistance and restructuring. These water-related conflicts, popularly referred to as “water wars,” gained international attention a decade ago. The expulsion of water giant Bechtel by the citizens of the Bolivian city Cochabamba marked the beginning of a greater resistance to water privatization and commercialization in Latin America. Given the failures of privatization and neoliberal policies in Latin America, it should not come as a surprise that the people are objecting to the commodification of this basic human need.
Privatization and Commercialization
It is worth noting that privatization and commercialization are distinct processes when discussing their implementation in Latin America. Privatization connotes reorganization and management from a source other than the public sector, and can involve a spectrum of private occupation. Commercialization entails the introduction of management institutions, such as free market competition (albeit simulated, in this case) into the process. However, privatization and commercialization are frequently concurrent processes, as was the case in Cochabamba.
There are only a few arguments commonly employed to defend water privatization in Latin America. The primary justification is that the governments of one of these countries have previously failed to adequately provide water, either because of incompetence or corruption. Organizations like the World Bank, which frequently finance privatization projects, dogmatically believe that the open market is more efficient at resource management than the state because the government is “overextended.” Furthermore, they think that the competition in private sector development will lead to higher quality and lower cost services. Another common rationale is that making water into a commercial good – thus assigning monetary value to water – makes consumers less likely to waste it. According to this argument, the commercialization of water would prevent its overuse.
These assumptions, however, are problematic. The postulation that competition is an inherent element of privatization is misguided. In fact, the corporate monopoly on water in Latin America is part of the reason that prices have been high and quality has been low. It could be wiser to address the concern about wasting water through an expansive educational program that encompasses both fundamental health issues regarding drinking water and sanitation, and information about the importance as well as preferred methods of water conservation. Another possible solution is through government regulation, which could be more effective if it were done transparently and involved community participation. The state could potentially utilize subsidies, a water tax or a credit to promote the sustainable use of water. The greatest problem with the mindset behind privatization is that while it considers water a human need, it is not deemed a human right, which essentially denies the universal right to life. Regardless, the fact is that Latin American countries that have experienced privatization of their water supply have seen little improvement, and in most cases water supply and quality have declined.
Bolivia’s Water War
Bolivia is the classic example of a situation in which the water privatization and commercialization process was disastrous. Two concessions to private, corporate control in Bolivia – part of a condition of a World Bank loan of US$20 million to the Bolivian government in 1997 – have now been rejected through popular uprisings. The first was in Cochabamba in 2000 against Aguas de Tunari, a subsidiary of the enormous U.S.-based Bechtel Corporation (which was the only bidder). The second uprising occurred in La Paz/El Alto, where a subsidiary of the French company Suez, called Aguas de Illimani S.A. (AISA), was thrown out in 2005. In Cochabamba, after Bechtel was installed, it quickly raised rates by an average of 35% (and in some cases as much as 200%), which was far outside the budget of the city’s poor and would have left many without access to water. Licenses were even required for individuals to collect rainwater from their roofs, and people were charged for water taken from their own wells.
Protests escalated to the point that the Bolivian government declared a state of martial law, and eventually the company was forced to abandon their operations in the country. Supporters of privatization in Bolivia argue that these tariff increases were necessary to improve the existing infrastructure and expand the service area. Furthermore, some have suggested that antecedent economic and social factors, such as political corruption and pre-existing anti-privatization public sentiment, contributed to the tinderbox complexity of the situation in Cochabamba and were responsible for the failure of water privatization.
After Bechtel was driven out by public outrage, the international attention given to Cochabamba’s “Water War” faded, although problems still remained. Marcela Olivera, the Latin American Coordinator of Food and Water Watch’s Water for All Campaign, writes that,
“the other battle that’s still going on, that we’re fighting now in the form of the struggle over water rights, has to do with our not being able to put together an effective, participatory popular alternative with social controls to serve as a counter to privatization, to private control of resources. This is a battle that’s still being waged in Cochabamba, but it’s less romantic and not so easy to talk about, because there are a lot of problems with the water company. Things have not been resolved now that the company has been reclaimed. I think this is where the true work lies - -work that is harder, unrecognized, and still involves an entrenched battle.”
The withdrawal of Bechtel left SEMAPA, Bolivia’s municipal water service, in charge of distribution. This service was also inadequate and left the poorer southern districts without water. After Evo Morales was elected in 2005, in part due to the social protest ignited by the Cochabamba incident, he created a Ministry of Water in Bolivia with the goal of achieving equal and universal access to water. While Bolivia has approved a new constitution that considers water a fundamental right and bans private appropriation, little progress has been made towards the country’s goal, as only US$800,000 was appropriated for the water budget in 2008.
