paraguay: affirming water as a human right!
Sobrevivencia/Friends of the Earth Paraguay is delighted to announce that the Paraguayan Parliament unanimously approved a water law that declares all water in the Paraguayan territory a property of the state, and access to water a fundamental human right. The law also establishes a legal framework for the protection and sustainable management of water.
FoE Paraguay is very happy with the new national water law, and is working hard to elaborate its regulations. This is important because corporations, allied with some sectors of the Executive and the Parliament, are already investigating ways to bypass the law through regulations.
Fortunately, FoE Paraguay is working in alliance with the Ministry of the Environment and the same group of progressive parliamentarians with whom the law itself was worked out.
Listen to Elías Días Peña, campaigner from Sobrevivencia / FoE Paraguay, in a short video made during an action organized on the 23rd of May 2007, when NGOs gathered in The Hague to protest against PPIAF (Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility), an agency of the World Bank that funds consultants to advise governments in poor countries how to privatise key sectors such as water, energy and telecommunications against the privatization of water.
