Sixth World Water Forum: Some Alternative Viewpoints

Jesse J. Richardson, Jr., was kind enough to send me this synopsis of WWF alternative viewpoints - strictly for informational purposes; he does not endorse any of the viewpoints.  It looks like the material is from the Common Dreams website. Any links have been provided by me.

Disclosure notice: I registered for, and donated to, the Alternative World Water Forum (but did not attend). I was involved in the 6WWF (as a session coordinator) as was my organization (AWRA), which sits on the board of the WWC, which organizes the WWF and is not affiliated with the United Nations.  

It's always good to have alternative viewpoints, although I do not necessarily agree with all the ones espoused here.

One of my colleagues commented to me that there didn't seem to be any compelling issues that the anti-WWF crowd was espousing this time. At the previous WWF the big concerns seemed to be privatization and commodification. This year? Perhaps the anti-WWF folks are running out of gas, too.

By the way, speaking of alternative viewpoints, the organizers are claiming 35,000 participants. I must have missed some in my final count. My comment: 'Uh-huh.' I suspect they are counting the total number of participants, not registrants. Every time you entered the secure area, your badge was scanned. So if I re-entered twice on a given day, then for that day, I counted as three participants. Over six days, I might have counted as 15 participants. The number I heard for registrants was about 18,000.

Common Dreams
March 16, 2012

Water Justice: 'We Are the Movement Whose Time Has Come'

Corporate World Water Forum "refuses to acknowledge" recognized right to water and sanitation

- Common Dreams staff

At the Alternative World Water Forum, the Forum Alternatif Mondial de l'Eau (FAME) in French, water justice activists are providing a counter-narrative to the corporate-dominated World Water Forum, which "refuses to acknowledge" the recognized right to water and sanitation.

Water rights activists are slamming the World Water Forum as a "trade show" for "big corporations." Food & Water Watch's Wenonah Hauter states that the "World Water Forum is dead" while Maude Barlow declares their forum "pathetic."

Speaking to the water rights activists at the alternative forum, Barlow says that it "is time for us to take our power" and that "we are the movement whose time has come."

* * *

Wenonah Hauter: Why World Water Forum “Solutions” Miss The Mark

Yesterday I walked around the “solution tents” at the 6^th World Water Forum, which is more clearly than ever a trade show for the water industry to sell expensive services and products. Arranged as a “village,” the exhibit offered no vision for a future that addresses the source of pollution or the reason that millions of people lack access to water. From the tents labeled “factory” and “slum” to the “bank” and “library” exhibits, the failure to address the real problems was Kafkaesque.

[...] While multinational companies are benefiting from the oil, gold and cocoa in countries like Nigeria or Ghana, the residents of these countries providing this wealth are going without having their basic needs met. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund should start pressuring governments to tax multinational companies, rather than using their political power to force these governments to give tax breaks to multinationals.

It’s also time to start including pollution prevention goals at the forefront of the debate on solving the world water crisis. A forum that does not address pollution or real long-term solutions for providing everyone safe drinking water is not a venue for governments to participate in.

The World Water Forum is dead. Low attendance and a dearth of real solutions make it pale and anemic in contrast to FAME (Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau), the Alternative Forum where thousands of people are gathering across town to discuss implementing the right to water. We are calling on the UN to stop kowtowing to industry and to start a process that looks at the real options for providing water for the thirsty—from the use of development money to the institution of a small charge on financial transactions. The global water justice movement is calling on the UN to hold the next global meeting on water in the fall of 2014.

The time is now for the UN and governments around their world to fulfill their duty and not to delegate it to corporations.

* * *

At the World Water Forum, "the failure to address the real problems was Kafkaesque."

Brent Patterson: The corporate World Water Forum is dead

[...] The challenges that remain are very real. The Ministerial Declaration of this World Water Forum purposely failed to affirm the United Nations recognized right to water and sanitation. This is a declaration that will be used to weaken other international statements on water and sanitation. It is also very clear that this first World Water Forum since the historic UN General Assembly vote on July 28, 2010 is trying to rewrite history, it is trying to erase the historical fact of the resolution that recognized these fundamental human rights.

While the World Water Forum may be dead, like a zombie, it doesn’t seem to understand that just yet. The World Water Council has already publicly stated that the next World Water Forum will take place in Daegu Gyeongbuk, South Korea (’winning’ out over Glasgow, Scotland).

But the water justice movement is actively discussing the idea of democratic, accountable, transparent, non-corporate, and people- and nature-centred international forum on the implementation of the right to water and sanitation to be held by late-2014, several months before the planned corporate gathering in South Korea.

And so while there are still challenges, two key facts remain. 1) The United Nations General Assembly has recognized the right to water and sanitation. 2) The United Nations Human Rights Council has affirmed that these rights are contained in existing human rights treaties and are therefore legally binding and equal to all other human rights. Given that the corporate forum refuses to acknowledge this reality, it’s even more clear, as really was always the case, that they are the ones out of step, and that the Alternative World Water Forum is the true and legitimate water forum!

I should add that I have great admiration for Maude Barlow. I certainly do not agree with all she says, but her heart is in the right place.

In a few days I will be providing my own assessment of the Sixth World Water Forum. It won't be all pretty.

"Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak." - Unknown

Comments

[PAUL MILLER]

... This Water Forum gets corporate mass media attention because it is part of the "cabal" agenda of world domination in this case privatization of our WATER and unless "we" choose to get off our butts and wake up that is most likely what will occur ...

[Jesse Richardson]

Note that I just forwarded the article for informational purposes. I don't endorse the viewpoints of the articles.