Polaris Institute, January 2003
At the dawn of the 21st century, a global water crisis is looming. According to the United Nations, 1.3 billion people in the world today lack access to clean water while 2.5 billion do not have adequate sewage and sanitation. No less than 31 countries are considered to be in water stressed areas. Worldwide demand for water is doubling every 20 years, twice the rate of population growth. By the year 2025, demand for fresh water is expected to outstrip global supply by 56 percent.
For most people around the world, water is not to be treated like any other commodity to be bought and sold in the market place. On the contrary, water is essential for both life and nature. Not only humans, but plants, animals, and the planet itself depend on having access to adequate supplies of water for their very survival. For these reasons, water is considered to be a public trust. That’s why water services are generally run by public and municipal systems in most countries today.
Yet, keeping water as a public trust is increasingly being tested. In recent decades, a global water industry has emerged in which for-profit corporations are taking control of public water services around the world. More and more, cash starved governments with aging water infrastructures [e.g. pipes] are turning to corporations to provide water service delivery and waste water treatment. The new trend line is water privatization. Through long-term contracts, corporations are grabbing lucrative profits by providing essential water services. “Water is a critical and necessary ingredient to the daily life of every To date, there have been at least three models of water privatization: (1) the human being, and it is an equally complete sell off by governments of public water delivery and treatment systems powerful ingredient for profitable to private corporations [which took place in Britain]; (2) the granting of long term manufacturing companies.” leases or concessions allowing corporations to takeover the delivery of water --- Mike Stark, a senior executive at US services and the collection of revenues [which has been the French model]; and (3) the more restricted approach where corporations are contracted by governments to manage water services for an administration fee. No matter which model is used, experience shows that transnational corporations, regardless of how responsibly they try to carry out their business, are simply not designed to provide public services to all people on an equitable basis. Indeed, the delivery of water services is based on the ‘ability to pay,’ which means that poor communities frequently end-up without adequate services. Nor are corporations organized to conserve natural resources like water. Since maximizing profits often means encouraging increased consumption, it is not in the interest of water corporations to promote water conservation.
The main purpose of this pamphlet is to provide a look at how the major corporate players in the global water industry today are able to make use of international trade agreements and financial regimes to accelerate and consolidate the privatization of public water systems. The pamphlet identifies who the major water corporations are, how they operate, and what their track record has been in providing water services around the world. It also provides a few examples of new rules being quietly negotiated in trade agreements like the GATS, that support the corporate takeover of water. In addition, this booklet exposes how water corporations exploit the global south by profiting from the financial levers of the IMF and World Bank.
In short, this pamphlet is about the water grab that is going global. We begin with a brief look at some of the battlefronts in communities around the world where people are organizing to fight for their water rights. More
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