Seminar: Reclaiming Public Water

TNI

November 2005

Seminar: Reclaiming Public WaterWorld Social Forum, Porto Alegre, 28 January 2005

Translation: English, Spanish and French

Attractive and viable alternatives exist both to water privatisation and to failing, bureaucratised state-run water utilities. During this seminar, activists and water utility operators will present examples of how public water delivery can be improved through diverse forms of democratic utility reform. This will be followed by debate about what needs to happen on the local, national and international level to create optimal circumstances for public water to succeed and what the international water justice movement can do to achieve this.

The seminar will also be the launch event for the book Reclaiming Public Water. Achievements, Struggles and Visions from Around the World, written by public utility managers, trade unionists and civil society activists from more than twenty countries.

Speakers include:

Alberto Munoz, National Roundtable of the Users and Consumers Union, Argentina
Santiago Arconada, Hidroven, the national agency for drinking water and sanitation in Venezuela
Nila Ardhianie, Indonesian Forum on Globalisation
Cam Duncan, Public Services International
Julian Perez, Federation of Neighbourhood Committees (FEJUVE), El Alto, Bolivia
Carlos Todeschini, the former director of DMAE, Porto Alegre's water utility (to be confirmed)
Silvano Costa, president of ASSEMAE, the progressive federation of public water utilities in Brazil (to be confirmed)

After the seminar, a workshop on follow-up activities will take place in the same room (E203). This workshop will focus on the needs and priorities for joint action identified during the morning seminar.

Co-organised by:
The Anti-Privatization Forum (South Africa), Blue Planet Project, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), the Council of Canadians, Public Services International (PSI), Friends of the Earth France, Friends of the Earth International, REDES (Friends of the Earth Uruguay), Transnational Institute (TNI), War on Want (United Kingdom).