World Water Forum Starts with a Bang: Activists Challenge Corporate Hypocrisy

ISTANBUL, TURKEY – The 5th World Water Forum (WWF) is now in full swing in Istanbul Turkey. Water justice activists have convened from around the world to challenge the corporate driven agenda of the Forum while presenting an alternative vision for water justice that upholds and protects water as a human right and ecologist trust.

Such a response to the Forum is not new; every three years, the opening of each Forum has been marked by demonstrations, counter forums and other actions around the world that seek to challenge the role of private water corporations in setting the agenda for global water justice and policy.

The theme of this year’s forum, Bridging Divides for Water, is especially appropriate given the growing inequality in access to clean drinking water that plagues the planet. The UN estimates that currently a billion people in the developing world, mainly poor and marginalized communities, lack access to water and that figure is projected to grow to two out of three people in the near future.

However, the title of the Forum is ironic given the role of corporations in further creating “divides” in water, not bridging them. The Forum is organized by the World Water Council – an organization founded, led and influenced by transnational corporations, international financial institutions and their allies; all of whom have a stake in maximizing profits from water services delivery and the current global water crisis.

This year may prove to be a particularly challenging one for Forum proponents. More and more governments, NGOs, social movements, and other actors on the global stage are beginning to raise questions about the Forum’s legitimacy, and are calling on government leaders, including leaders of the UN, to move towards creating a more legitimate process and venue that fosters full democratic participation and decision-making regarding global water policy.

One stark illustration of the contrast between these competing visions for water policy is the meeting of the CEO Water Mandate in Istanbul, in conjunction with the Forum.

The CEO Water Mandate, an initiative launched in March 2008 and sponsored by the United Nations Global Compact Program, is presented to the world as an initiative by corporations and CEOs that encourages and enables corporations to take responsibility for their impact on global water resources. It is one of an increasingly dizzying array of ‘corporate social responsibility’ initiatives that make big promises about improving corporate practices, but in many cases have yet to deliver meaningful results. The Mandate is no exception.

To begin with, the companies that first launched CEO Water Mandate all have a vested interest in securing control over water sources and services in times of increasing water scarcity, and all have come under scrutiny for practices that have had hindered people’s access to water. A key player in the Mandate is Coca Cola, which has a highly questionable track record when it comes to water takings and water pollution. Suez, another signatory of the Mandate, is one of the world’s largest privatizers of water services. Nestle is the world’s leading bottled water company, and Pepsico and Groupe Danone are also major players in the global bottled water industry. A host of other companies from the mining, timber, chemicals and other industrial sectors whose processes are inherently water intensive and impactful, are now signatories to the Mandate as well.

Perhaps more importantly, however, is that the Mandate itself has no mechanisms within it to allow ordinary people to hold corporations accountable for their actions. The program is a ‘voluntary’ initiatives, meaning that ultimately the corporations involved have full say over how much they do or don’t do to honor the terms of the Mandate itself.