Peoples Water Forum - Category Feed (Blog Posts)

FWW and global water justice movement make the cut!

Web Editor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:27:42 -0500

Every year, Project Censored publishes a ranking of the top 25 most deserving stories that go unreported in the U.S. mainstream media. I’m pleased to share the news that this year’s list includes “Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud,” recognizing the increasingly successful work of the global water justice movement. Out of more than 700 entries, this recognition was based on reporting from the 2009 World Water Forum in Istanbul by Jeff Conant, FWW staff member, and on Democracy Now! and KPFA radio interviews with Maude Barlow, FWW board president.

While the forum only happens every three years, our ongoing campaign endeavors to expose the corporate bias that underlies the World Water Council, who sponsors the forum. The WWC, led by executives from major multinational water companies, tries to present the image that they are a fair and balanced multi-stakeholder body, well-suited for setting global water policy, but the reality is that they host the forum to push their pro-privatization agenda. Rumor has it that due to successful work by the global water justice movement in Istanbul, the WWC is running damage control and is expected to soon replace their not-so-subtly biased leadership with puppet leadership from academia or pro-corporate non-profits. Replacing their leaders won’t fool anyone—we already know who runs the show.

Next week, Oct. 14-16, in Marseille, the World Water Council will hold their
Annual General Meeting and we hear that in an attempt to legitimize their image, they will invite up to 6 seats from UN agencies to join their Board of Governors.

In response, members of the global movement are collecting signatures for a letter advocating that the UN host all future water forums and opposing UN participation in the WWC Board of Governors. Signatures are being collected until October 13th so time is short. Please add your voice to support water for people not for profit.

The folks at Project Censored couldn’t have better timing since around the world, Blue October is being celebrated in honor of Uruguay’s constitutional adoption of the human right to water in October 2004. To learn more and to see a global calendar of events, check out the Blue October website.

Congratulations to Jeff, Maude and all those who fight for water justice around the world!

-Darcey O’Callaghan

Food & Water Watch and International Coalition to Protest Corporate Control of Water Systems at Worl

Admin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:23:12 -0400

Washington, D.C. Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, along with Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians and representatives of the Latin American network Red VIDA, the Asian organization Focus on the Global South, and many global allies, will protest the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, next week, March 16-22. The organizations are members of an international coalition that has come together to protest the World Water Forum's stance on water privatization and to defend the human right to water. Read More

Activists Slam Water Forum

Admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:13:16 -0400

10 hours ago

ISTANBUL (AFP) A global ministerial meeting was putting the final
touches here Saturday to resolutions for tackling the world's water
crisis but activists attacked the process as a corporate-driven fraud.

The communique to be issued by more than 100 countries on World Water
Day on Sunday climaxes a seven-day gathering on how to provide clean
water and sanitation for billions and resolve worsening water stress and
pollution.

"The world is facing rapid and unprecedented global changes, including
population growth, migration, urbanisation, climate change,
desertification, drought, degradation and land use, economic and diet
changes," according to a draft seen by AFP.

The document, which is non-binding, spells out a consensus for boosting
cooperation to ease trans-boundary disputes over water, preventing
pollution and tackling drought and floods.

It also describes access to safe drinking water and sanitation as "a
basic human need." France, Spain and several Latin American countries
were striving to beef up this reference, from "need" to "right," a
change that could have legal ramifications.

But campaigners representing the rural poor, the environment and
organised labour blasted the communique as a sideshow, stage-managed for
corporations who are major contributors to the World Water Council,
which organises the Forum.

Maude Barlow, senior advisor to the president of the UN General
Assembly, said the Forum promoted privatisation of resources by "the
lords of water" and excluded dissident voices.

She called for the meeting to be placed under the UN flag.

"We demand that the allocation of water be decided in an open,
transparent and democratic forum rather than in a trade show for the
world's large corporations," Barlow told a press conference.

David Boys, with an NGO called Public Services International, said
"transparency, accountability and participation" were absent from the
Forum, and dismissed the ministerial statement as "vapid."

Around 880 million people do not have access to decent sources of
drinking water, while 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper
sanitation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) said in a report on Tuesday.

By 2030, the number of people living under severe water stress is
expected to rise to 3.9 billion, a tally that does not include the
impacts of global warming, according to the OECD.

The World Water Council, based in the southern French city of Marseille,
holds the World Water Forum every three years. The Istanbul conference,
the fifth in the series, drew a record more than 25,000 participants,
and registrations from at least 27,000.

The Council's website says it is funded by more than 300 member
organisations from 60 countries, including water utilities, governments,
hydrological institutions and associations involved in research,
environment and education.

Its president, Loic Fauchon, rejected charges of elitism and exclusion.

"Everyone is invited, and in any case, everyone comes these days," he
told AFP.

He added: "If it (the Forum) were organised by the United Nations, it
would lose its characteristic of being open to all. In a UN conference,
not everyone who wants to come can participate. In the World Water
Forum, anyone can take part."

The Istanbul Forum has focussed overwhelmingly on issues of policymaking
and includes a big trade fair by water utilities and engineering firms.

It has also staged side events on issues of civil society, but to a far
smaller degree than in other big environmental meetings.

Grassroots campaigners have complained of high registration fees, of
geographical separation from the main conference events and of
overbearing security.

Copyright 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Joint Declaration of the Movements in Defense of Water

Admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:38:45 -0400

From March 14 to 19th, we, human beings with a holistic vision of life, activists from social movements, non-governmental organizations, and networks that struggle throughout the world in the defense of water and territory and for the commons, have shared ideas, struggles, worries and proposals. At the same time we have realized how our struggles have brought change around the world, slowing the process of water privatization. Now that we are not on the defensive, we are capable of promoting concrete proposals advancing in the life of every corner of our world. Download the entire declaration here

Deported From the World Water Forum

Admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:05:58 -0400

Ann Kathrin Schneider
Back home in Berlin, I am overwhelmed by the show of support for our
message that dams are a risky business. In India alone, one hundred
activists and organizations signed a petition denouncing our
deportation from the World Water Forum and thanking International
Rivers for saying no to risky dams.
Payal and
I traveled to the World Water Forum in Istanbul to inform the world
about the risks of building large dams. We painted a large banner in
red, yellow and blue with the words "No Risky Dams" and brought that
into the official forum. With the banner, we wanted to show the world
that while the World Water Forum seeks to advocate for the construction
of more large dams, people around the world know that dams are a risky
business.
Read more

Political Intrigue at the World Water Forum

Admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:46:55 -0400

- Jeff Conant
Behind the World Water Forum's public posture as a trade expo and an
educational exchange among water advocates lies a labyrinth of
political intrigue and corporate cronyism. Corporate interests that
make up the World Water Council are in constant contact with the World
Bank and other financial institutions; each Forum pretends to be a
quasi-United Nations event, to the extent of issuing a Ministerial
Statement at the Forum's close promoting global policy approaches to
water and sanitation.
Read more.

World Water Forum Demonstration �� Video

Admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:08:35 -0400

Watch a video of the demonstration, courtesy of ��Sacred Water Project��.

Fifth World Water Forum Marked by Violence and Repression

Admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:18:58 -0400

by Jeff Conant

As the World Water Forum opened on March 16th in Istanbul Turkey, 300
Turkish activists gathered near the forum's entrance were faced with an
overwhelming force of 2000-3000 police. The peaceful protest quickly
escalated as police charged the crowd, firing water cannons, tear gas,
and rubber bullets and lunging into the crowd with fists and truncheons.

The World Water Forum is a triennial gathering which, according to it's website, is "an open, all-inclusive, multi-stakeholder process" where governments, NGOs, businesses and others "create links, debate and attempts to find solutions to achieve water security." The World Water Council, the forum's main organizer, is dominated by two of the world's largest private water corporations, Suez and Veolia. Loc Fauchon, president of the Council, is also thepresident of Groupe des Eaux de Marseille, a company owned jointly by Veolia and a subsidiary of Suez. The alternate president, Charles-Louis de Maud'huy, has been working at Compagnie Gnrale des Eaux, a subsidiary of Veolia, since 1978. Critics contend that the Council's links to Suez and Veolia, as well as the large representation of the business industry in the Council, compromise its legitimacy.

Food & Water Watch Denounces Violent Suppression of Protestors at World Water Forum

Admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:34:17 -0400

Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

Earlier today, Turkish police violently attacked a peaceful protest by water activists convened to oppose the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul. Protesters were assaulted with rubber bullets, water cannons and gas and a number of them were arrested. Food & Water Watch denounces the appalling actions of the Turkish police and sees them as sadly emblematic of the undemocratic nature of the World Water Forum. Read More