Economic and Social Security Cluster, 8 Sept. 2004 Asia-Europe People's Forum.

Economic and Social Security Cluster, 8 Sept. 2004 Asia-Europe People's Forum.

WATER SECUTIRY AND PEOPLE-CENTRED WATER MANAGEMENT

Background

In Asia and indeed in the rest of the developing world, a major transformation is underway in the organization and management of water resources. There is an effort to reorganize water resources - its ownership, management, distribution, and access - through the dictates of the free market and premised solely on the profit motive. Such an effort has the potential of eliminating existing state responsibility in the provisioning of water.

The reorganization is being promoted at a time when the developing world is confronted with a water crisis and scarcity predicament and thus has implications for Asian water security including an equitable access to water for purposes of sustenance and sustainable livelihood.

Public Private Partnership or privatisation is being put forward as the most efficient method in which to reorganize scarce water resources of countries. The proponents of public-private partnership include The Breton Woods Institutions, the European Commission Union, European governments, the Regional Development Banks including the World Trade Organization (WTO). These cheer leaders of the free market provide the ideological, financing, legal and enforcement framework for the realization of water as a commodity and the privatisation of water resources.

The private public partnership or privatisation of water resources is taking place at a time when other essential services - necessary for the survival, sustenance and reproduction of the individual and the family- such as healthcare, electricity and education are being privatised by nation states.

The Bretton Woods institutions are of the opinion that the poor will be best served through the market. Governments suggest that they are unable to absorb the enormous cost including subsidies that provisioning of these resources would require. Collectively, the poor have become more vulnerable as a result.

There is a fear that the victims of privatisation will be the vulnerable and marginalized groups in society. The indigenous communities, small farmers, women and the urban poor face the brunt of water privatisation.

Water scarcity is perceived as a profit opportunity, thus access to water will be a function of affordability, and no longer as a need or right to sustain life and livelihood. The transformation - from public to private hands - involves the redefinition of existing relationships between people and their government's responsibility vis-à-vis access to water as a human right, constitutional dictate and a development goal.

LEARNING EXPERIENCES ABOUT ALTERNATIVES TO WATER PRIVATISATION

Objectives

• Principles and foundations on which people-centred water management systems could be developed
• Existing participatory models that are being used in various countries;
• Exploring the potential for Public-Public Partnerships;
• Alternative financing for public water.

Proposed Topics

1. Sharing an overview of the performance of public water utilities, both problematic ones and those that work effectively and provide affordable water for all in East and Southeast Asian countries as well as European countries
2. Learning from campaigns to convince (local) governments to move from private to public water supply (as well as towards more effective public water)
3. Discussing visions for effective and democratic public water in both regions

Presenters

Prakarma Radja-Siregar (Koalisi Anti-Utang, Indonesia)

America Vera-Zavala (ATTAC, Sweden)

Commentators

Charles Santiago (MSN, Malaysia) (tbc)

Frances TC Lo(Bantay Tubig, Philippines)

Bernhard Hack (CEO, The Netherlands)

Moderators

Paul Scannell (TNI, The Netherlands)