[stop-imf] End to privatization of global water resources sought (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

This should be the basis for an important particularized component against
structural adjustment demands.

Robert Weissman
Essential Information			|   Internet:	rob@essential.org


>End to privatization of global water resources sought
>Reuters: June 12, 2000
>
>BRUSSELS: European environmental parties have joined forces with seven
>of the world's poorest nations to call for an end to the privatization
>of global water resources.
>
>At a ''summit'' devoted to water problems, representatives from Burkina
>Faso, Senegal, Madagascar, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Palestine and Bolivia on
>Wednesday said the privatization of water utilities was threatening
>peoples' right to free access to the vital resource.
>
>''Drought is a man-made disaster,'' said Vandana Shiva, noted
>environmentalist and honorary president of the so-called P-7 group of
>the world's poorest nations.
>
>Privatization policies followed by the World Bank and the World Trade
>Organization (WTO) were encouraging control of water resources by
>multinational companies and exacerbating water shortages across the
>globe, she said.
>
>Access to water is a ''fundamental universal right,'' stressed Paul
>Lannoye, president of the green group of environmental parties in the
>European Parliament.
>
>In a reference to tensions over water in West Asia, Palestinian
>representative Chawki Armali warned that Israelis used an average of 300
>litres of water, per head and per day. In contrast, Palestinians had to
>make do with 50 litres of water for each individual per day.
>
>The P-7 summit is organized every year in Brussels by the European
>Parliament's green group to highlight development issues. The group sees
>the meeting as an alternative to the annual G 7 summit encounter of the
>world's most industrialized nations. (Reuters)