World Citizens Assembly on Water at WSF

Posted on Nov 13, 2005. This article has been read 730 time(s).

Date: 19th January 2004
Time: 9.00am - 1.00pm
Place: Room No C-96

Organisation: WATER Workshop of the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World & Water Watch Penang (Malaysia); Contact: Larbi BOUGUERRA, France/Tunisia (larbi@fph.fr) & Chan (waterwatchpenang@hotmail.com)

Rationale:
Throughout the world, water management has more failures than success. Whether it is run by international organizations, governments, municipalities or industry/private companies, the management of water has been in disarray, leaving millions without access to clean water and sanitation. Consequently, a long string of international water organizations have been set up globally to coordinate and manage water. However, none of them can claim to be entirely independent as they depend on international institutions, governments or private sector funding (many have on their board of directors representatives from their funding bodies) As a result, even today, after many world water forums, water disasters and tragedies continue to escalate. This is unacceptable. We, the water activists, demand that a World Citizens Assembly on Water (WCAW) be convened to put an end to this situation, by deciding on alternatives and promoting the ethics of water. In a word, it should define a world governance of water.

Workshop Objectives:
1 – In our workshop in Mumbai WSF we shall address the subject close to that of the WCAW, that of “the democracy of rivers,” in other words, the setting up of representative assemblies of citizens from different countries belonging to the same catchment area. These agoras could decide together for the benefit off all everything concerning the integrated and sustainable use of the water and territories of their common hydrographic basin. Consequently, it would be possible to revitalise and redynamise indigenous agriculture in terms of resource use and management, in order to counter technical solutions that encumber this precious ancestral know-how.

2 - We shall attempt to promote the idea of a world jurisdiction for water, put forward at the 2002 ESF to solve conflicts on use and management, advance towards the global governance of water and formulate the legal foundations of such a jurisdiction.

3 - Lastly, we shall propose a World Water Authority founded on democratic principles to avoid the fragmentation of tasks in this area, since these are currently dealt with by the WHO, FAO, UNESCO, WMO, etc. who all have competencies on the subject. This leads to difficulties and bureaucracy whose victim is the world’s water, and also to delays in solving problems.

Procedures / Strategies:
Another conception of water management on a global scale could be based on the five following principles:

-  Access to water in sufficient quantities and of sufficient quality for dignified life must be considered as a human right. The right to water is a universal right and nobody should be deprived of it because they cannot pay. We note with satisfaction the recent “general commentary” issued by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights, which asserts that the right to water must be considered as a human right (ratified by 150 governments) as well as the Porto Alegre Declaration (Janvier 2002) which takes the same stance.

-  Water must be considered as a public good of the biosphere and thus of all life.

-  Public authorities such as communes, regions, local authorities, governments, etc. must ensure the infrastructures required to make the right to water for all a reality in the framework of sustainable development

-  Communities – and especially women – must be able to exercise the right to active subsidiarity at every level, and participate democratically and with transparency in the management of water as equals alongside elected representatives, technicians, etc.

-  Access to drinking water must be accompanied by adequate drainage to protect water tables, reservoirs and irrigation canals, public health and more largely that of ecosystems.

A World Citizens Assembly on Water should take up a position on the five principles announced above and ensure that all the world’s inhabitants have access to drinking water and drainage by 2015, by persuading governments to make formal political commitments to achieve this end, since the lack of water destabilises society, creates problems and generates conflicts. At the same time, it must also outline the bases for ethics on water, since poverty predominates wherever water is lacking, often more than the simple lack of the resource. These ethics must be the keystone of education aimed at young persons in particular so that they are taught to understand the unique nature of this vital resource as no like substance exists anywhere.

These ethics on water must also cover the protection of this vital substance against different forms of pollution and waste in order to preserve the rights of future generations (and the entire biosphere) to untainted water.

Keywords: Water, governance, ethics, sustainable management of water, role of women.

Links with other WSF 2004 activities: common goods, agriculture, biodiversity, resolution of conflicts, human rights