world water forum: making water
everyone’s business
corporate europe
observatory
The World Water Fora are the triennial
meetings of the World Water Council - an
international think-tank with considerable
influence in the world of international
water politics. Taking advantage of the
fact that there is no UN body or
international institution with the mandate
to facilitate intergovernmental discussions
on water policy, the Forum has become the
official meeting of minds on the issue. As
a result, the outcomes of these meetings
have tremendous influence over
international, national and local water
management decisions.
Much of the fodder for today’s
developments in global water policy can be
found in the World Water Council’s 1998
“World Water Vision: Making Water
Everybody’s Business” document. According
to World Bank Vice-President and former
chair of the World Water Council Ismail
Serageldin, the result was intended to
“contribute to changing our world water
future.” If change is measured by the
increasing rate of privatization and
deregulation in the water sector, it is
clear that the Council’s vision has become
more than just wishful thinking.
The World Water Council and its sister
organization, the Global Water Partnership,
which boasts many of the same masterminds
as the Council, were firmly guided by
corporate and neoliberal personalities in
their early days. The World Water
Commission, the body entrusted with
drafting the World Water Vision, included
some high profile corporate and neoliberal
personalities including Suez Chair Jerôme
Monod; Business Council on Sustainable
Development founder Maurice Strong; former
World Bank President Robert S. McNamara;
Inter-American Development Bank President
Enrique Iglesias; and World Bank/UN Global
Environment Facility CEO Mohamed T.
El-Ashry.
In recent years, both have backed away
from their corporate identities, likely in
an attempt to lend more credibility to
their agenda, by including more
representatives of national ministries and
UN agencies on their boards. Still, Suez
Vice President Rene Coulomb doubles as Vice
President of the World Water Council, and
Emilio Gabrielli of Thames Water is
Executive Secretary of the Global Water
Partnership.
Discussions at the first two World Water
Fora (1997 and 2000) did not focus on debt
relief, water conservation, community
empowerment, land reform or corporate
regulation, all of which would have
contributed to resolving the water crises
unfolding around the world. Instead,
resounding calls were heard for full
liberalization and deregulation of the
water sector, “national treatment” whereby
transnational corporations should be given
the same treatment as local enterprises
and/or public authorities, and of course
privatization.
The showroom area of the conference (the
World Water Fair), gave corporations such
as Nestlé, Suez, Unilever, and Heineken a
chance to showcase their efforts to promote
sustainability and water efficiency, while
their CEOs addressed the assembly demanding
that water be recognized as a commodity
rather than as a human right.
Critical voices were raised during the
Forum. In one session on Public- Private
Partnerships, a Filipino member of a public
sector union in Manila stood up in the
audience and displayed a sample of Manila
tap water after one such partnership was
implemented with Suez (formerly Lyonnaise
des Eaux). The yellow-brown water held
aloft in a small bottle was quite an
embarrassment for the company’s marketing
director, who had just completed a dry
presentation on the success of the gigantic
Manila project. At the end of 2002, Suez
announced that it will pull out of its 25
year contract and the Philippine public
water operator will take over the country’s
water system.
And there were the members of Los
Solidarios con Itoiz, a group seeking to
stop the construction of the Itoiz dam in
the Basque country, who managed to
interrupt the opening ceremony with a
banner drop inside the main hall, a chorus
of protest from the audience, and a ‘naked
truth’ action on stage demanding “No
Profits from Water” and “Stop Itoiz
Dam”.
The Third World Water Forum will take
place in Kyoto, Japan in March 2003. This
will be the largest water gathering to
date, reflecting the Council’s successful
conquest of the political space open for
water policy discussions. The World Water
Forum will likely be used to give a
high-level, official seal of approval to
the results of the 2002 Johannesburg Earth
Summit, which gave a firm endorsement to
the public-private partnership model that
corporations have been lobbying for. The
Forum will also adopt a World Water Action,
drafts of which show some very impressive
rhetoric, but as always, the bottom line is
increased market access for private water
companies.
more information:
Corporate Europe Observatory:
www.corporateeurope.org
World Water Forum:
www.worldwaterforum.net
World Water Council:
www.worldwatercouncil.org
Global Water Partnership:
www.gwp.sida.se
