Billions lack access to basic sanitation
By KEVIN SPURGAITIS
Blue gold’ is becoming hard to come by.
The UN estimates the world’s population tripled last century, leading to a six-fold increase in the use of water resources by agriculture, industry and municipalities. In the world’s “hot stains” (the Middle East, Northern China, Mexico, California and many parts of Africa), water reserves are rapidly drying up. Developing countries, such as South Africa, the Philippines and Indonesia, now suffer serious scarcities. According to the UN, water will inevitably become the most pressing issue this century. And as more public reservoirs go private, human rights and environmental groups are forecasting a “global water crisis.”
“The provision of water around the world has been a fiasco, a disaster and a tremendous failure,” says Danny Gillis, the education co-ordinator for Development and Peace (D&P), a Canada-based, international development agency that finances more than 13,000 projects in 70 countries. In the second of a three-year campaign, “Water: Life before profit,” D&P opposes international lending institutions they say deny poor communities access to clean, affordable water. They want to strengthen the role of the public sector in delivering and regulating water services.
“When it comes to essential services, such as water where people’s lives depend on it, I don’t feel countries should be forced into a position where they have to privatize their water,” says Gillis.
The World Bank lends an estimated $2 billion annually for water services in developing countries — three times more than 2002 lending levels. However, a third of all loans by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are conditional upon the privatization of water services, it is alleged. According to D&P, Third World lendees are expected to permit private companies — mainly multinational corporations — to control municipal water services.
Purified water can be pricey. With their water bills unpaid and taps turned off, millions of indigent people risk death or illness ingesting unsafe water sources.
According to the UN 2002 Human Development Report, 2.4 billion people in 31 developing countries lack access to basic sanitation — more than one billion have no access to clean drinking water. Preventable water-related diseases kill 10,000 to 20,000 children every day in the same areas. In South Africa, a recent cholera outbreak affecting 250,000 people was blamed on a government decision to charge citizens the full cost of water services. The country’s epidemic continues coupled with tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases running rampant. Each year, millions of South Africans also contract diarrhea because of sub-standard sanitation.
‘Water Padlocked for life’
South Africa is at the heart of the civil society movement salvaging the world’s water. Despite boasting the world’s 21st largest economy, the country remains one of the most unequal. Pre-paid water meters are widespread in the two poorest districts of Johannesburg: Orange Farm and Phiri. Their water is padlocked for life, critics say. In the country’s poorer townships, hundreds of thousand post-apartheid, state-subsidized houses — dubbed “kennels” by black residents — are cut off from fresh water under privatization, according to the government’s Human Sciences Research Council. Unable to afford higher water rates, denizens of these new slums must trudge 10 km with buckets to the nearest, free reservoir.
“This is not empowering the people at all. It’s destroying their lives,” says Richard Mokolo, the founding member of the Orange Farm Water Crisis Committee, a local movement struggling against the privatization of the municipal water services here. A small, subsistence farmer, Mokolo lives in the settlement south of Johannesburg — what he describes as a South African “shantytown.”
In 1985, the former anti-apartheid activist was imprisoned without trial and reportedly tortured for advocating free education in the country. Mokolo says a new kind of apartheid now exists in South Africa.Here, safe drinking water is delivered to 1.5 million people by Johannesburg Water, which is partly run by the French multinational Suez Lyonnais. After taking over Orange Farms’ water system three years ago, the company began charging one-fifth or more of total household incomes. However, more than 14,000 people are formally employed. Sometimes, families of eight survive on a grandparent’s old age pension of $135 a month. People wait until three or four others use the toilet before they can afford to flush it. Some must even pay for baptisms. With their meters running out — their water cut off in the middle of the night — debtors build makeshift ‘standpipes’ that run into their homes.
One cannot wash or cook in cola, Mokolo says. He encourages Orange Farm citizens to bust open the rusty, pre-paid meters, so they can access clean water.
“The lives of the people have changed since the local municipality introduced (pre-paid) water meters). Only those with money are getting water. Others must steal or borrow it. It’s becoming worse for the poor, unemployed people of Orange Farm.
“Governments must ensure that there is universal access to basic services, especially water … It’s their responsibility to provide to us, not the private sector.”
Relying on anti-apartheid activists’ old loyalties, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) rolled out red carpet for advisors and consultants from the World Bank and the IMF, as well as from the U.K. and the U.S. Following the 1996 introduction of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution Strategy, a self-imposed structural adjustment programme, President Thabo Mbeki cemented his agenda of turning over state enterprises to companies like Johannesburg Water, says Mokolo. A former member of the South African Communist Party, Mbeki said he plans to address the country’s economic challenges with a “free-market economic policy.”
Contrasting the views of his former pragmatic deputy, ex-president Nelson Mandela urged the country’s politicians to place water and sanitation higher up the political, economic and social agendas. In his speech at the 2002 Earth Summit, he told delegates “the absence of clean water” was stark in the “widespread impoverishment of the natural environment.” “Access to water is a common goal. It is central in the social, economic and political affairs of the country, (African) continent and the world,” Mandela said.
Mokolo maintains: “The future lies in organized workshops …We need to educate people at the local, parish level. Social movements are blooming again because of the policies of the government. All the civil societies need to come together and make sure that water is being protected.”
South African protest echoes action taken in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where during the 1990s, the World Bank offered the city a $20 million loan to expand water service. In return, officials welcomed a private operator to their water system — a subsidiary of the American firm Bechtel — which increased water fees by up to 300 per cent, it is reported. Residents of Cochabamba who earned the monthly minimum wage of $90, had to pay as much as one-quarter of their income for the new water service. Standing up to their government, though, Cochabamba citizens succeeded in having their fees significantly reduced. In the end, the Bolivian government cancelled its contract with Bechtel in 2000. It is now being sued by Bechtel.
Big business
Big water companies like Suez, Vivendi and Bechtel reportedly own 5 per cent of the world’s water — a market potentially worth $800 billion. According to a report in Fortune, the water industry’s annual profits are almost half as much as the oil industry, yet higher than the pharmaceutical sector. The World Bank maintains it does favour private participation in delivering water. However, in a1992 paper entitled, “Improving Water Resources Management,” the bank claimed that water availability at low or no cost is “uneconomic and inefficient.”
Even the poor should pay, it stated. In order to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015, the World Bank says approximately 300,000 people per day must be connected to fresh water systems over the next 10 years. Their estimated price tag is $25 billion annually.
Gillis demurs: “Because these companies are profit-driven, shareholder expect the prices of water to naturally rise. And the people who can’t afford it will be cut off. Water is essential to everyone. Meanwhile, the rich, who can pay, can fill up their swimming pools or water lawns, although the real need is around basic sanitation and drinking water.”
Water is a human right and should remain a collective responsibility instead of being turned over to private enterprise.”
Last year, more than 200,000 Canadians signed D&P’s Water Declaration, which was presented to members of Parliament and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). Between 2002 and 2003, Canada was the only country that opposed resolutions related to the right to water at the UN Human Rights Commission. The government claimed water — unlike food — is not explicitly mentioned as an entitlement in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. D&P recently received a letter from Prime Minister’s Office, acknowledging the human right to water domestically, but the government stops short of international recognition. It expressed concerns about the potential pilfering of Canada’s water supply from U.S. transporter ships. D&P now prepares for World Water Day in March and the 2006 World Water Forum in Mexico City.
In this 10th anniversary of “Mandela’s miracle,” South Africa’s first democratic election, Mokolo says he cannot revel in freedom celebrations without basic services provided to all South Africans. “Anti-privatization is a civil struggle, but water is a global struggle,” he argues. “Learn from us in Africa; governments be aware.”
Originally published in the Catholic New Times, November 2004
