NO to DCWD Privatization
Employees of the water district in Davao City gather outside the city hall to protest a proposed P100-million loan from the Local Water Utility Administration that would lead to the privatization of the city’s water system.
World Water Day - Did you know?
Fetching water is part of the gender inequality. Check out these statistics from the United Nations Water for Life initiative:
- In rural Benin, girls ages 6-14 spend an average of one hour a day collecting water compared with 25 minutes for their brothers.
- In Malawi, there are large variations in the amount of time allocated for water collection based on seasonal factors, but women consistently spend four to five times longer than men on this task.
- In Tanzania, a survey found school attendance to be 12 per cent higher for girls in homes located 15 minutes or less from a water source than in homes one hour or more away. Attendance rates for boys appeared to be far less affected by distance from water sources.
- In 12% of households children carry the main responsibility for collecting water, with girls under 15 years of age being twice as likely to carry this responsibility as boys under the age of 15 years.
- Research in sub-Saharan Africa suggests that women and girls in low-income countries spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water—the equivalent of a year’s worth of labour by the entire Work force in France.
- In Africa, 90% of the work of gathering water and wood, for the household and for food preparation, is done by women. Providing access to clean water close to the home can dramatically reduce women’s workloads, and free up time for other economic activities. For their daughters, this time can be used to attend school.
In honor of World Water Day, here’s the tale of two cities in Texas that have run out of water because of the drought. The town of Robert Lee in West Texas has already cut its water consumption by 80 percent, and conditions are only getting worse.
According to climate scientists, little rainfall compounded by record high temperatures across the Southwest could be the new norm. In 2011, losses in crops, livestock and timber from the drought reached $10 billion.
(Photos by Saskia de Melker)
-KC
Since this debate is closed to the public and is only open to Forum participants, who must pay prohibitive fees in travel and registration to attend, I feel rather than participate in the debate myself, you should hear from a citizen directly impacted by water privatization schemes,” wrote Hauteur to Benedito Braga, President of the International Forum Committee.
“No company should profit from the endeavor to supply the world with clean water and sanitation,” wrote Hauter. “Anything less is unacceptable, and that is why I will not support the Forum with my participation in this debate.
Winonah Hauteur declining invitation to WWF (via ENEWSPF)
(Source: enewspf.org)
Did you know that an estimated 30-50 percent of the food produced in the world goes uneaten? AND nearly 70 percent of our fresh water resources are used for agricultural purposes. (UN Report via RTT) It’s time to think about how we can eliminate waste.
Bolded content added by WaterSavvy. Thank you Michael (climateadaptation) for posting the report link.
Tapped Trailer (by tappedfilm)
lots of extra info on this site
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France: revolt in the birthplace of water privatizaton
Privatized water has been well established in France since the days of Napoleon. By the time then U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan began calling for more privatization, three large companies already supplied water to more than half of the French population.
The business of water started with the realization that there was money to be made delivering it to places where people needed it the most - homes and factories.
Suez and Veolia Environnement (formerly Vivendi Environnement) are France’s largest water companies.Suez’ roots in the water business go back to 1822. It now has more than 125 million customers around the world.
Veolia provides water and wastewater services to more than 110 million people around nearly 100 countries. During the nineties, their revenue from water more than doubled to $12 billion a year.
This article is from March of 2004 but still relevent. Read more about leaders of these companies.
Chinese Water Symbol
Today, Bechtel is spreading its water privatization elsewhere, aided by war. Within a month after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bechtel acquired a $680 million contract for “rebuilding” Iraq. As Vandana Shiva writes in her article Bechtel And Blood For Water: War As An Excuse For Enlarging Corporate Rule, “The U.S. led war first bombed out Iraq’s hospitals, bridges, water works, and now U.S. corporations are harvesting profits from ‘reconstructing’ a society after its deliberate destruction. Blood was not just shed for oil, but also for control over water and other vital services… war has become a convenient excuse for enlarging corporate rule. If W.T.O. is not enough, use war.”
George Shultz was Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan and previously was the president of Bechtel. He is now a board member and senior counselor for the corporation. He was chairman of the pro-war Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and wrote in a op-ed article in the Washington Post September 2002 that “A strong foundation exists for immediate military action against Hussein and for a multilateral effort to rebuild Iraq after he is gone.”
Because Bechtel is a privately held company, without public stock trading, it does not have to reveal many of its operations. Bechtel is responsible for over 19,000 projects in 140 countries on all continents, and is involved in over 200 water and wastewater treatment plants around the world. It was involved in the Dabhol plant in India with Enron, and is now involved in water privatization of Coimbatore/Tirrupur as part of a consortium with Mahindra and Mahindra, United International North West Water. The contract has not yet been made public, as is the case with other privatization contracts
