water justice
hemantha withanage, foe sri
lanka
Life on earth is utterly
dependent upon water. The average human
needs a minimum of fifty liters of water
per day to drink, to cook with, to wash,
for sanitation and to grow food. There are
gross inequities in the way that water is
consumed around the world. The average
person living in the United States uses
between 250 and 300 liters of water per
day.
The average Somalian,
however, lives from less than 9 liters per
day. Not only is water scarce in many parts
of the world, but it is often polluted or
otherwise disrupted through human
activities including large-scale hydropower
projects, industrial and urban pollution,
deforestation, pesticide use, waste
disposal and mining. Global ecosystem
transformations caused by climate change
and desertification also impact the
availability of water.
The privatization of water
sources around the world is a growing
problem. Water is a basic human right, and
although water management in the public
interest may be necessary, this vital
resource should not be subject to
ownership. International financial
institutions, hand-in-hand with
multinational water corporations, are
paving the way by conditioning their loans
to poor countries upon privatization
promises. Trade treaties are helping by
requiring countries to deregulate their
water sectors and open them up to private
investment.
The world’s poorest people
are desperately in need of water and
sanitation services, but experience has
shown that they are just further
marginalized when their countries follow
the corporate mode of privatization. Unable
to afford connection to the services, they
are condemned to using water that runs the
risk of being contaminated.
Friends of the Earth groups
around the world are fighting for water
justice in various ways, reflecting their
various environmental and political
situations. Many are involved in the
struggles against privatization, and are
proposing new models based on collective,
communal systems that respond directly to
the needs of the poor. Others are focusing
on reduction and reuse of water, and on
restoring rivers and wetlands to a more
natural state. In our campaigns for the
sustainable and equitable use of resources,
we are determined that water justice shall
be served for people everywhere.
"Water should be
treated as a social and cultural good, and
not primarily as an economic
commodity."
UN Committee on Economic, Cultural and
Social Rights
