Spring 2009

Defend the Global Commons

Food & Water Watch • www.foodandwaterwatch.org

People’s Water Forum Builds Momentum for Water Rights and Justice
This March, the World Water Forum (WWF), the world’s
largest water policy gathering, met in Istanbul, Turkey.
Organized every three years by the World Water Council, a
consortium of private water operators and their representa-
tives, the forum is billed as “an open, all-inclusive, multi-
stakeholder process” where governments, non-governmen-
tal organizations (NGOs), businesses and others “create
links, debate and attempt to find solutions to achieve water
security.” But, as at previous fora in Mexico City (2006),
Kyoto (2003), and the Hague (2000), this year’s forum felt
less like a civil gathering attempting to “find solutions” and
more like a flashpoint for heated debate and acrimony over
the future of the world’s increasingly scarce water resources.

The WWF’s slogan this year was “Bridging Divides for

Water.” Yet, with its 400-Euro price tag (about $515 US
dollars), tight security and extravagant promotion of mar-
ket-based and high-tech solutions to water scarcity and fi-
nancing, critics see the WWF as representative
of the very divisions it hopes to
bridge. While 25,000 people at-
tended the official forum, several
alternative gatherings were orga-
nized in Istanbul: two by Turkish opposition
groups and one by a coalition of hundreds
of international water advocates who came
together under the name “People’s Water
Forum.” Food & Water Watch worked
with dozens of allied organizations
from more than 70 countries
to make the People’s Water
Forum a truly representa-
tive and profoundly moving
experience.
The Organization of Economic
Cooperation and Development
(OECD) released a new report at
the WWF, “Managing Water
for All,” which was indicative
of the policies promoted
there. The report is fo-
cused on pricing and fi-
nancing and argues that
Photos from the People’s Water Forum, by Food & Water Watch staff.
“Full cost recovery based on tariffs should be the long-term
goal [of financing in the water sector].”
But proponents of public water know that “cost recovery” is
a buzzword for “profit.” Vibhu Nayer, Project Director with
the Tamil Nadu Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Scheme
in India, speaking at a People’s Water Forum event, “We’ve
never had this phrase ‘cost recovery’ before. Irrigation uses
much more water than drinking and sanitation, yet we
don’t hear the words ‘cost recovery’ with irrigation. Why do
you want to take money from the poor for drinking water
when there seem to be perfectly good public ways to raise to
raise money for roads, for education and so on?”
Each World Water Forum mimics a United Nations pro-
cess by hosting a series of roundtable discussions between
government ministers, corporate lobbyists and NGOs that
leads to a final Ministerial Statement. While the statement
has no teeth in international law, it plays a significant sym-
bolic role in projecting policies on the ground. This year’s
debate centered on the concern that the words “human right
to water” had been excluded from the Ministerial Statement,
(Continued on page 4.)
2 Defend the Global Commons Spring 2009

The Right to Food and Food Sovereignty on the U.N. Agenda

Like the right to water, the right to food was not written
into the original Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
it is only in recent years, with the advent of the set of rights
known as Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, that the
United Nations is establishing legal obligations to ensure
the right to food. In a world where the right of corporations
to profit seems to dominate the right of farmers to subsist,
the right to food brings a powerful argument to the table.

On April 6, 2009, the President of the U.N. General As-

sembly held a discussion entitled “Policy Choices and the
Right to Food in the Context of the Global Food Crisis,”
moderated by Food & Water Watch’s Senior Representa-
tive, Brother Dave Andrews, and a second panel, “Answer-
ing to the Poor: Right to Food and Sustainable Models of
Agriculture,” moderated by Barbara Ekwall. Along with a
host of seasoned advocates for food justice, Henry Saragih,
General Coordinator of La Via Campesina represented the
voice of farmers, discussing the international community’s
obligation to protect the right to food and food sovereignty.
Brother Dave of FWW is working with Father Miguel
d’Escoto, President of the General Assembly, to pass a reso-
lution on the right to food before September, when the cur-
rent presidential term expires.

These discussions come in response to a Human Rights

Council Resolution requesting that the U.N. Special Rap-
porteur on the right to food report on States’ efforts to
respond to the global food crisis. The overall message from Photo by Lionel Titu/Stock.Xchng.
the panels was that the global food system needs serious
repair to meet human rights obligations and alleviate the
food crisis. Market concentration, unsustainable produc-
tion methods, vast inequities in consumption, unfair trade
About Defend the Global Commons regimes and subsidies, and the dominance of a handful of
multinational corporations have stripped agriculture of its
Defend the Global Commons is edited and published
essential purposes: feeding people, protecting biodiversity
quarterly by Food & Water Watch, a non-profit
and sustaining local cultures.
food safety and agriculture policy organization that
works toward sustainable food production and water
In a report delivered to the WTO, the Special Rapporteur
resource policies.
takes sharp aim at one of the major causes of hunger world-
wide: unfair trade. The report states: “The main impacts
Food & Water Watch International Staff
of the current multilateral trade regime on the right to
Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director
food include increased dependency on international trade,
Jeff Conant, International Research and
threats to local producers, and balance of payment prob-
Communications Coordinator
lems for net food-importing countries; potential abuses of
Darcey O’Callaghan, International Policy Coordinator
market power in increasingly concentrated global food sup-
Dave Andrews, Senior Representative
ply chains; and impacts on the environment and on human
Marcela Olivera, Latin America Coordinator, Bolivia
health and nutrition — impacts that are usually ignored in
Alberto Villareal, Latin America Coordinator, Uruguay
international trade discussions, despite their close relation-
Claudia Campero Arena, Mexico Coordinator, Mexico
ship to the right to adequate food.”
Defend the Global Commons is available on the
These discussions at the United Nations mark an impor-
Internet at www.foodandwaterwatch.org. If you have
tant step in confronting the food crisis. Food, like water, is
updates or comments for the next newsletter please
a crucial element of the Commons, both local and global,
contact us at water@fwwatch.org.
and we salute the U.N. for stepping up to the plate in its
defense.

Food & Water Watch • www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Spring 2009 Defend the Global Commons 3

New Booklet Celebrates Water Movements Across Latin America

Emerging from a continent-wide gather-
ing in Cochabamba, Bolivia in August
2008 (see DGC, Winter ’09), Food &
Water Watch, Red VIDA, Other Worlds,
Transnational Institute and Reclaiming
Public Water have collaborated to pro-
duce a 50-page booklet of testimonies
from the vanguard of Latin America’s
movement for the human right to water.
Changing the Flow: Water Movements in
Latin America was produced in time for
distribution at the World Water Forum
and People’s Water Forum in Istanbul in
March 2009 and can be downloaded for
free at: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.
org/changing-the-flow.
Movements for social change are built on stories of the pop-
ular will. While there are many reports on the failures on
water privatization and the emergence of new models, until
now there have been few places where you can hear the
stories of the water movement in the words of movement’s
boldest individuals. As Salvadoran water warrior Ana Ella
Gómez says of the Latin American water movements, “We
are many voices, one echo. We are constructing a new defi-
nition of hope.”
Integral to the fight for water is
another fight, equally fundamental,
for a new model of citizen power and
a new accountability from the state.
Oscar Olivera, a spokesperson for
the popular movements that ejected
the Bechtel Corporation from
Bolivia in 2000, is fond of saying
that, “Behind the fight for water is
the struggle for democracy.” But
democracy, in this sense, is not
limited to the election of officials
to national office in hopes that they
will represent the will of the people.
For the water movements, true
democracy demands a redefinition of politics, and
of the nation itself as a political structure. Saul
Atanacio Roque Morales, an elder statesman for
control of indigenous water from Mexico, reminds
us that, “The nation is us, the people.”
– from the introducion to Changing the Flow

ANAW Brings Anti-GMO Message to the United States

For the past year, the Africa Network for Animal Welfare
(ANAW), in coalition with the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition,
has led a David versus Goliath battle against the financial
influence of multinational corporations to keep geneti-
cally modified organisms out of Kenya.  ANAW’s director,
Josphat Ngonyo toured the United States in April giving a
talk titled: “Africa Bullied into Submission by Multinational
Corporations: Kenyan Perspective on GE Technology,
GMOs and Bio-safety Legislation.” Josphat explained how
Kenyan farmers and consumers were kept in the dark last
year as the legislature passed a law on GMOs that benefits
corporations while putting farmers and consumers at risk.
To read more about Josphat’s work, including ANAW’s ef-
forts to develop a sustainable management plan for Lake ANAW Director Josphat Ngonyo. Photo provided by Ngonyo.
Naivasha in Western Kenya, check out the Food & Water
Watch blog.
Food & Water Watch Is Hiring in Africa
Food & Water Watch seeks to expand our work on the Af-
FWW also supports ANAW’s ongoing campaign to develop
rican continent by hiring an African Coordinator to join
a sustainable management plan for Lake Naivasha in West-
our team of experienced campaigners, researchers and lob-
ern Kenya. The overabundance of flower farms around the
byists. The Coordinator will develop and implement field
lake have made the region the largest supplier to the Euro-
organizing and media strategies and campaigns to support
pean flower market, while severely depleting water levels,
our work and the work of our coalition partners in Africa.
pumping toxic refuse into the lake and eliminating public
To learn more or apply for the position, see www.foo-
access for migratory wildlife and the local Maasai.
dandwaterwatch.org/about/career-opportunities.

Food & Water Watch • www.foodandwaterwatch.org

4 Defend the Global Commons
Reclaiming the Commons Through Public Utility Partnerships
As the water movement evolves, it has learned that resisting
privatization, while important, must be accompanied by the
construction of ecological, equitable and just alternatives in
water management and financing.
As Marcela Olivera of the Red VIDA has written, “During
the last six years many Red VIDA organizations have par-
ticipated in successful campaigns to expose the failures
of the model of water privatization taking place in their
communities and have demanded the exit of private
water corporations. In each of these unique citizen
struggles for local control over water services, we
have realized the need to develop new models
of public and community water service de-
livery with transparency, citizen oversight,
community participation and environmen-
tal protections.” One example, growing
quickly throughout the Americas, is the
model for “Public-Public Utility Partner-
ships (PUPs) for Water.”
The name takes off from Public-Private Partner-
ships (PPPs), the euphemistic term that the Inter-
national Financial Institutions have used to build private
sector investment in water. PPPs everywhere have resulted
in price hikes, decreased pollution control and water cut-
offs, and have undermined the already challenged capacity
of many public water utilities to provide reliable service.
In contrast, PUPs are a cooperative model of water man-
agement; they encourage public utilities, municipalities
and communities to jointly develop sustainable solutions.
A typical PUP is a collaboration between a well-run, techni-
People’s Water Forum Builds Momentum for Water Rights and Justice
(Continued from page 1.)
replaced by the phrase “access to safe drinking water and
sanitation is a basic human need.” In the minutiae of politi-
cal verbiage, this apparently slight difference in terminol-
ogy can have a profound significance. If water is “a human
need,” it implies no obligation on the part of governments
to ensure access to it. If, however, it is “a human right,” a
series of policy procedures follow suit to make compliance
obligatory.
Aaron Salzburg, the Special Coordinator for Water Re-
sources with the U.S. State Department, told the Food &
Water Watch delegation, “We don’t oppose any government
that wants to implement the right to water. But before we’d
ever recommend that all governments should do this, we
need data that shows that a rights-based approach can ac-
tually make a difference.”
Of course, for people whose rights have been denied,
whether by high tariffs, by contamination or by failure of
Spring 2009
cally established public utility and one that is less successful
and in need of support. PUPs exclude the profit-motive,
based as they are on mutual aid and cooperation. PUPs
recognize that the most crucial resource in water manage-
ment is not money, but people power. As Steve Bloomfield
of Public Services International (PSI), a global organization
representing 20 million workers, said, “If anyone has the
experience to address the world water crisis, it is public sec-
tor workers — we are the greatest single body of experience
that exists in this field, and we should be given the op-
portunity to put that experience to the test.”
Current PUPs supported by the Red VIDA include
exchanges between water utilities in Argentina
and Peru, Argentina, and between Uruguay
and Bolivia. According to a recent report
from PSI there are 137 PUPs in 70 countries.
The report says, “This means that far more
countries have hosted PUPs than host PPPs in
water.” Globally these partnerships are begin-
ning to receive support from an initiative at U.N.
Habitat called the Water Operator’s Partnership
(WOP).
Supporting PUPs is important not merely because they
represent a new model of water management and financ-
ing emerging from the debacle of water privatization, but
because this model is built on a paradigm of human rights,
democratic stewardship and the common good. There is
still a long way to go to bring water and sanitation to those
excluded from these services; but the model of water de-
mocracy represented by PUPs is an important step in the
way forward.
water delivery service altogether, there is little doubt that
a rights-based approach can make a difference. By the final
day of the forum, a block of southern country governments
had developed a statement declaring that “access to water
and sanitation is a human right,” and that future Water Fo-
rums should be convened not by the private sector, but by
the United Nations; 25 governments signed the statement
on human rights and 16 pushed for the United Nations to
take the lead on water policy.
Meanwhile, the People’s Water Forum marked a tremen-
dous step forward in defending the global commons. Water
justice activists, both veteran and new, united to advance
a vision of water that not only resists commercialization of
basic resources, but also promotes local, democratic, com-
munity-based alternatives.
Food & Water Watch • www.foodandwaterwatch.org