World Water Forum in Istanbul

In the closing Ministerial Declaration, the one billion people without access to clean drinking water were yet again denied recognition of the right to water. This meant that country representatives were undermining not least of all the work of the Independent Expert on access to water and sanitation appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. During the seven days of deliberations, Switzerland, Uruguay, South Africa, Spain and several other countries in Africa and Latin America had advocated for the inclusion of access to water in the Forum's closing document, not just as a «fundamental human need», but as a right. The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Lluís Maria de Puig too had proposed the inclusion of a fundamental right to water. If the Forum had ever had any legitimacy, it was definitively squandered by the Ministerial Conference in Istanbul.

Privately funded lobbying event

The United Nations had released its third report on the situation of the world's freshwater resources to coincide with the start of the Forum. It was jointly drafted by 27 UN bodies. Their findings are dramatic: the global water crisis is worsening, not least of all owing to climate change, and there will be an increased number of conflicts and even wars over the scarce resource. Mark Smith, a water expert from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told the Forum that climate change would be felt first and foremost through water, in the form of droughts, floods, hurricanes, melting ice or rising sea levels. The organisation promotes better legislation to protect resources.

The ministers offered no more than non-committal appeals for improved cooperation in response to the bleak future outlook. At no stage could any common political will to action be detected. Politicians must therefore face the question of whether they are more than mere water carriers for multinational corporations bent on converting the basis of life that is water into a profit-making commodity. There is no arguing away the fact that the Forum, funded and supported largely by water and power corporations like Veolia, Suez and RWE, is a lobbying event at which companies are keen to strike up business relations with governments. In a giant exhibition hall, turbines, water treatment plants, desalination plants, dams and bottled water were being extolled as the way out of the crisis. The Zurich Cantonal Bank estimates the market for drinking water and sewage disposal at 320 billion US dollars. In its Global Corruption Report 2008, Transparency International has identified corruption in the water sector as the cause and trigger of water crises.

Repression and dam-building fever

Yet it was not just the Ministerial Round that left an insipid taste behind. Even before the start of the Forum, host country Turkey showed just how much value is attached to the free expression of opinion, criticism and human rights in its national territory. The word «dams» had already caused a stir even before the Forum got under way. The upshot was the cancellation, under pressure from the Turkish Government, of a UNESCO presentation on the harmful impacts of dam construction projects on historical cultural goods.

On the very day of the opening, the police used batons, water cannons and tear gas against peaceful demonstrators displaying a banner that read: «Water is a human right and not a commodity». The slogan «No Risky Dams» became the pretext for arresting two members of International Rivers and later expelling them from Turkey. The reason given was that the action was intended «to influence public opinion». So true...

Even as NGOs militated at their alternative forum against disruptive dam construction projects that violated human rights, and specifically against the building of the Ilisu dam on the Tigris, the Forum itself was gripped by a veritable dam-building fever. Turkey's Environment Minister announced the building of a further 800 to 1000 dams throughout the country. Iran's Energy Minister was no less proud to announce that, «Over the next five years, we will be building at least another 90 dams». The two countries are by no means the only ones eager to tackle water shortage, electricity production and irrigation problems by means of a cascade of dams. Pakistan, Brazil and many others have also chosen that course, and all this with the «blessing» of the UN: «Build dams, we need more dams, that is the simple fact, even if many NGOs are reluctant to acknowledge this», said UNESCO Director responsible for the International Hydrological Programme Andras Szöllögy-Nagy in Istanbul, drawing applause. What is clear is that dams are a power factor and a potential source of conflict as they are a means by which to control and regulate water supply to countries in the lower reaches of rivers, and can serve to exert pressure.

A wave of privatisations

Host country Turkey came in for sharp criticism from numerous NGOs also because of its aggressive wave of privatisations. In this same year, Ankara is preparing to sign over a series of rivers, lakes and springs to private power companies for 49 years in each case. This also includes the rights of use of the Euphrates and Tigris. All across the world, the current financial and economic crisis seems to be giving fresh impetus to the philosophy of privatisation, despite the numerous failed water supply privatisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Members of the African Water Network reported that the World Bank was now advising multinational corporations to enter into so-called management contracts, which in reality were no different from the (old) privatisation of water systems. The Asian Development Bank too is still urging individual countries to privatise their water supply systems.

Strong NGO presence

Numerous representatives of non-governmental organisations from the five continents (trade unions, environmental and farmers associations, human rights, development and consumer organisations, indigenous peoples, amongst others) met for an alternative world water forum, the People's Water Forum. These also included Turkish NGOs that had not been admitted to the official forum. The event opened with a message from the President of the UN General Assembly Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, in which he strongly supported the right to water and came out against privatising this basis of life. D’Escoto was represented by Maude Barlow, Senior Adviser on Water to the UN General Assembly. In the closing Declaration, participants called for all countries to recognise the human right to water and for water to be recognized as a public good. They reaffirmed their determination to oppose the privatisation and commercialisation of water. They further called for the next World Water Forum to be organised by the UN, which would open the way for a democratic and participatory process. The NGOs would like the World Water Forum in Istanbul to be the last «private» one.

At the UN Climate Conference scheduled for Copenhagen in December, civil society organisations will be putting forward the positions and demands they formulated in Istanbul. For climate change is undoubtedly compounding the water crisis and hence food insecurity and poverty with each passing day.

And the positives?

In addition to the civil society water network that is constantly growing and gaining in strength, individual countries too have stood out for their advocacy of the right to water. Some 20 countries were dissatisfied with the final declaration from the ministerial conference and laid out their position in a declaration of their own, at the core of which was recognition of the human right to water. Those countries included South Africa, Spain, Bangladesh and several Latin American countries, including Uruguay and Bolivia.

More information on the World Water Forum:
> http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/eventos/65.html
> 3rd UN World Water Development Report 2009

Contact: Rosmarie Bär