international forum against water privatisation in the hague
On May 22 2007, Friends of the Earth International, together with others, organised an international forum on water privatisation in The Hague. The PPIAF (Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility) is a little known World Bank agency that funds consultants to advise poor countries on how to privatise key sectors including water. Many students participated in the forum, which took place a day before the PPIAF's own annual meeting. After the forum, our delegation delivered a letter to the PPIAF, signed by 138 groups from 48 countries, asking the donors to withdraw from PPIAF.
Elias Dias Pena from FoE Paraguay presented a case of water
privatisation and the roles of the World Bank and IMF in promoting
water privatisation in Paraguay.
Hot news was announced during our forum! A statement from the Italian
vice minister said: "Water is not a commodity and we have to work to
remove it from the logic of privatisation. (...) For this, I thought it
appropriate at this moment to withdraw the participation of the Italian
Development Cooperation from the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory
Facility." And it continues: "And I hope that most of you will be open
to support a broader objective such as agreeing on a universal
declaration of water as a human right within the framework of the
United Nations." A few months earlier, the Norwegian government had
also stopped funding PPIAF.
The next day, we held a protest in front of the beach hotel where the
PPIAF's annual meeting took place. We handed over our letter and a
symbolic gift of locked water bottles to donor goverments.
For more information please see CEO's website.
Check out our action video clip.
Listen to Elias talking about the Paraguayan water law.
Read the news.
with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs and the wallace global fund
