Brussels, 21/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - Water is a common good, a fundamental right for all and part of the right to life. The World Water Assembly for Elected Representatives and Citizens (WWAEPC) at the European Parliament in Brussels on 18-20 March made this crystal clear, and resolved to mobilise widely to get the right incorporated in a United Nations Declaration as a way of counteracting water privatisation policies, universally accepted as devastating by all the participants - elected officials, trade unions, civil society organisations, companies, public water utilities and citizens involved in water issues. According to the United Nations, more than 1.1 billion human beings currently do not have access to clean drinking water and 2.6 billion lack decent water treatment services, leading to a devastating impact on the health and hygiene of the people concerned.
Addressing the World Water Assembly, the president of the GUE/NGL group at the European Parliament, Francis Wurtz (France), said 'there was a strong ongoing effort to guaranteed access to water as a common, public and universal good in all its dimensions - social, economic, political, cultural and ethical.' At the closing press conference, Roberto Musacchio, Italian GUE/NGL MEP commented that 'the neoliberal privatisation of water provision has severely exacerbated water supply problems throughout the world,' adding that such privatisation policies were being prompted by the World Bank. He expressed the WWAEPC's concerns about water privatisation policies, which have failed to increase access to water - far from it, in fact. Musacchio said water policies had to be based on local communities. A UN declaration is required to confirm that water is a universal good, to bring this subject to life, to stress that the right to water is a right to life and should be anchored in constitutions. Musacchio regretted that last year's 'positive resolution' by the European Parliament, adopted ahead of the Fourth World Water Day in Mexico in March 2006, had not been implemented - it included the demand for water access to be promoted as a right. Musacchio added that he would have liked to have seen the same demand added to the draft constitution for Europe.
The Bolivian water minister, Able Mamani, explained that the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, which came to power in January 2006, had made a sea change by turning water into one of its priorities, a basic resource accessible to all citizens, forming the foundation of communities in rural and urban zones. He said that water was crucial for development and every human being needed water to be able to live. He expressed delight that developing countries in Latin America and elsewhere had become aware of the need to act to ensure water supply companies were public companies. He called for a strategic alliance to be established between Northern countries and Latin America. We want to forge such an alliance, he said, without worrying about who has natural resources. We have to work together to submit proposals together to the United Nations, starting from the social movement to draw the attention of governments, he explained. Pleased with the outcome of the World Water Assembly, Mamani suggested setting up a follow-up committee to ensure the results of the conference were not relegated to some dusty side office.
Riccardo Petrella of the World Water Contract stressed the significance of the conference taking place at the EP building: 'We have stepped into the shoes of the MEPs and moved from rhetoric to a phase of commitment - governments such as the Italian and Bolivian administrations, among others, have recognised the right to water access and are scheduled to establish mechanisms by which this right will be enforced.' Commitments by groups of countries that 10 December 2008, the anniversary of the original Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should be Right to Water Day. Commitments by public water utilities, which account for 80% of global water supplies, to unite to stop the private sector, controlling 20%, from calling the shots. Commitments by mayors to create an alliance to boost the autonomous capacity of local communities. Petrella pointed to practical schemes such as those in Belgium and Italy to replace water vending machines in schools with water fountains providing free tap water, in agreement with local authorities and water suppliers. Sekou Diarra of the African Water Network said it was important to preserve the concept of water as a sacred common good. He said he backed the idea of water being supplied by public companies and urged the European Parliament to back the initiative. World Water Assembly for Elected Representatives and Citizens emerged from the first Alternative World Water Forum in Florence in 2003, winning huge support at the Bamako and Caracas World Social Forums. (an)