LONDON, UK, March 16, 2009 -- As the Fifth World Water Forum begins in Istanbul today, activists have already begun to create trouble, with violent protests that have diverted attention from the real issue -- the one billion people who do not have clean drinking water.
Kendra Okonski, IPN Research Fellow and editor of The Water Revolution, said of the protestors: Whether it's Tokyo, Mexico City or Istanbul, a few global activists show up like clockwork at the World Water Forum to protest and make noise. Unlike the bona fide participants in the forum, they offer few -- if any -- concrete solutions to real water problems. In fact, these activists harm the world's one billion people who lack clean water and the 2.6 billion without sewerage.
Caroline Boin, IPN Research Fellow, explained that the status quo with water is harmful and unsustainable: The activists attack the World Bank, multinationals and the very notion of profit. But less than five percent of global water management today is private. The real culprits are governments who mismanage and misallocate water to farmers and other special interests, as well as the politically connected, in poor countries. Not only does this harm the poor, it also harms the environment by encouraging waste.
Governments, aided by activists, are perpetuating thirst.
To coincide with the World Water Forum (16-22 March), International Policy Network publishes two new studies on water management.
The first study examines oft-repeated claims about a failure of private water provision in Cochabamba, Bolivia, when local protestors threw out a water consortium. It goes beyond hyperbole to examine the real causes of the failure -- including local corruption and vested interests.
>> The Cochabamba "Water War: An Anti-Privatisation Poster Child? By David Bonnardeaux [.pdf]
The second study reviews private water management in Chile. It shows how Chile adopted a comprehensive approach to water reform, creating a far more sustainable use of water, nearly universal water connection, and a dramatic improvement in sewage treatment in a very short time.
>> Chile: A Dynamic Water Market by María de la Luz Domper [.pdf]
IPN is a global think tank based in London, and is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. IPN runs campaigns seeking to educate the public about the importance of markets and market institutions in the context of global policies relating to development, trade, health, the environment.
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