[WATERFORALL] press release-World Bank should treat water as right

[Guest guest]

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:05:33 -0400

" Sara Grusky " <sgrusky

 

 

[WATERFORALL] press release-World Bank should treat water as

right

 

 

 

 

 

News from Public Citizen's Water For All Campaign

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PUBLIC CITIZEN PRESS RELEASE

 

For Immediate Release: Contact: Wenonah Hauter (202)

454-5150

April 13, 2005

Erica Hartman (202) 454-5174

 

Public Citizen to World Bank: Practice What You Preach

 

Consumer Group Urges Bank to Treat Water as a Human Right, Not a

Commodity

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As the World Bank convenes for its spring meetings

this week, Public Citizen today cautioned that incoming President Paul

Wolfowitz's past dealings with a private water contract in Iraq could

negatively influence the Bank's detrimental policy of tying water

privatization clauses to loans for developing countries.

As the architect of Iraq's reconstruction following the 2002 invasion,

then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz was behind the privatization

of essential services in the country, particularly in the water sector.

San Francisco-based Bechtel received a $1 billion contract to oversee

the rehabilitation, reconstruction and expansion of key elements of

Iraq's infrastructure, including municipal water delivery and

wastewater

systems. The contract, which has been extended to December 2005, was

part of a limited bidding process that forbade public review and was

initially kept secret from Congress.

Last year, Public Citizen published a report on the state of

Iraq's water sector, namely, that the country's water system was a

disaster because Bechtel had not fulfilled its obligations spelled out

in the contract.

 

" We've seen just how bad Mr. Wolfowitz's judgment has been when

it comes to delivering water to the people of Iraq, " said Wenonah

Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Water for All Campaign. " Let's

hope it's a hard lesson learned – and that the World Bank does not

follow in his misplaced footsteps. Now is the time for the World Bank

to reconsider its water privatization policies and change course. "

 

In the past decade, in collaboration with governments and regional

development banks, the World Bank has pushed water privatization and

promoted multinational water corporations in many countries across the

world as the answer to water and sanitation problems. As a result, the

global water industry has become highly concentrated, with three major

multinational corporations controlling more than 40 percent of the

private water market.

 

The World Bank's promotion of water privatization has led to

unaffordable water rates, public health crises, weak enforcement of

drinking water standards, a lack of compliance with contractual

commitments for investment, and lost jobs in places where private

contractors have replaced government workers. As affordable access to

essential services, such as water, are increasingly out of reach, waves

of protest are spreading across Africa, Latin America and Asia.

 

Despite the World Bank's public insistence that it is no longer tying

privatization clauses to loans, in the past three years, the

institution

has increased lending in the water and sanitation sector from $546

million in fiscal year 2002 to more than $3 billion in fiscal year

2005.

This means increased pressure on World Bank staff to push larger loans

faster to meet the funding targets.

 

Public Citizen tracks the World Bank's lending policy through " project

information documents, " which are prepared prior to loan approval. The

Bank's public relations rhetoric was also analyzed in Public Citizen's

2004 report Will the World Bank Back Down? Water Privatization in a

Climate of Global Protest, which found the World Bank publicly shifted

its rhetoric away from full-scale privatization in the face of

increasing global resistance, but meanwhile continued to mandate water

privatization in nearly all its loans. In a review of 51 countries

using World Bank loans, 91 percent of loans included water

privatization

clauses in 2000; in 2004, 100 percent of loans included such clauses.

 

" It's apparent the World Bank says one thing, but does another, " said

Hauter. " As we watch city after city revolt against these forced

privatization schemes, it's important that the Bank is reminded that

the

public does not support its disastrous business model. "

 

In a collaborative effort among citizens groups from around the world,

a new list of demands for the World Bank has been developed. Among

them, that the Bank:

 

* Fully recognize the human right to water in all Bank policies

related to water and sanitation;

* Remove all conditions, implicit or explicit, that require full

cost recovery from household water users;

* Remove all conditions, implicit and explicit, that require

public/private partnerships for governments to access loans;

* Cease loans that promote the reform of national water laws to

permit and protect private sector participation and increased

cost-recovery; and

* Work to strengthen the role of the public sector and encourage

meaningful participation of civil society and affected communities.

 

To read about World Bank Watch, Public Citizen's project to monitor

proposed World Bank lending in the water and sanitation sector, go to

www.worldbankwatch.org. To learn more about the Water for All

Campaign, please go to www.wateractivist.org.

 

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Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization

based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit

www.citizen.org.

 

Sara Grusky

Water for All Campaign

Public Citizen

Phone: (202) 454-5133

Website: www.wateractivist.org

 

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To to Water For All, send an email to

listserv with " Waterforall " in the

message.

 

 

For more information on the Water For All Campaign please visit

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/