Talk or Action at World Water Forum?

By Tara DePorte, AlterNet. Posted April 22, 2006.

The hallways of the gleaming Banamex Center fill with a rush of well-dressed people from around the world; the smiling faces of presenters at easy-to-assemble booths wait anxiously for the next visitor; excited students, engineers, and businessmen and women vie for a space in a conference room touting the policies of the World Bank.

At the same time, farmers, angry students, environmentalists and traditionally dressed women march through the smog-heavy streets of Mexico City. Outside, photographers and journalists cling to the spectacle of black-clad anarchist groups; inside, they're found trailing dignitaries, heads of corporations and key environmental groups -- always hungry for a story about the dramas and turmoil surrounding Earth's most precious resource: water.

These scenes are from the recent fourth World Water Forum (WWF) and numerous "alternative water forums" and anti-forum protests. No matter which side of the debate you're on, there's no avoiding the impact of World Water Forums on the world's water-related issues, and thus, on all of our lives. Yet few understand the purpose of the dialogues going on at this colossal event.

Why do water and sanitation need to be our top priority? Simply put, freshwater is increasingly the world's most limited resource, accounting for only 0.4 percent of the world's total water resources. Today, 20 percent of the world's population has no source of safe drinking water, and 40 percent lack access to sanitation as basic as a hole in the ground. The tragic result is the death of nearly 4,000 children per day due to water-related disease and illness. This lack of access also leads to the loss of productivity, reduced school attendance and an overall loss of health, time, and dignity for billions.

The World Water Forum is organized collaboratively between national authorities of this year's host, and an international organization called the World Water Council. This Council is an amalgamation of 323 governmental and intergovernmental water groups, private corporations and nonprofits. The inclusion of these corporations in the World Water Council draws the ire of adversaries, raising questions as to the purity of Forum processes and agendas.

The key function of the meetings is to set the global agenda for water resources management. According to Roberto Lenton, former head of the UNDP Energy and Environment Program and an organizer of the Mexico City forum, the WWF meetings are a good mechanism to keep leaders focused on water and sanitation issues and their critical impact on development. "It's not so much policy development, but reminding people periodically and reinforcing the need to focus attention on the subject."

The global concerns broached at the Forum ranged from global climate change to women's rights and armed conflicts, making it clear that water is not just an "environmental problem."

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With some 20,000 participants comprised of over 300 national and international organizations, this year's Forum emphasized the importance of local actions in achieving ambitious goals. The theme "Local Actions for a Global Challenge" encompassed 205 sessions ranging from "risk management" to "water and sanitation for all" over the seven-day conference.

"The greatest strength of the Water Forum is that there are so many people, so many things going on. This is also, of course, a weakness, in that you can only go to a small proportion of what is going on," remarked Lenton. Harried appearances and glazed-over eyes were the trademark of Forum participants, often seen straining to decide between a discussion of "Service Delivery and Local Empowerment" or "Challenges and Perspectives in Megacities," all while cornering key contacts and deciphering translation services through mini-headsets.

Much of the structure of the World Water Forum is left to the elected host country. The Mexico-based organizers chose to keep sessions and trainings open to all registered participants, but ministerial meetings, as well as opening and closing ceremonies, were closed except for a select, invited few. Even participants who did have access remarked that this exclusivity further detracted from dialogue among water workers. "The process left a bad feeling for everybody," concluded one participant. For many civil society groups, World Water Forums signify a continued push towards water privatization. These groups see the Forum as a corporation-sponsored event -- where big government meets big corporations -- and set the agenda with which communities are forced to comply.

These concerns are not completely unfounded: The official declaration of the third WWF, held in 2003 in Japan, clearly supported the role of the private sector in financing aspects of the water sector. And a look at this year's diverse financial sponsorship -- including the Mexican Ministry of the Environment, Microsoft, National Geographic and Coca-Cola -- does nothing to quell doubts about representation at, and accessibility to, the Water Forums.

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