Water Wars

Water is a human right, not a commodity. It is the essence of life, sustaining every living being on the planet. Without it we would have no plants, no animals, no people. However, while water consumption doubles every twenty years our water sources are being depleted, polluted and exploited by multinational corporations. Water privatization has been promoted by corporations and international lending institutions as the solution to the global water crises but the only one’s who benefit from water privatization are investors and international banks. The essential dilemma of privatization is that the profit interests of private water utilities ultimately jeopardizes the safeguarding of the human right to water. Access to clean, sufficient and affordable water is a human right necessary for survival not a commodity for open markets. When I first started researching this topic I wanted to write about the pros and cons of water privatization but the more I researched the more I realized that there are no pros to privatization. How can a price be placed on a life sustaining resource? Currently 31 countries suffer from water scarcity and one billion people lack access to clean drinking water. The United Nations estimates that by 2035 two-thirds of the worlds population will suffer from lack of access to clean and safe drinking water. #2 However, not everyone seems to believe this. Our governments and their corporate allies now see water as the new cash crop of the future. They are promoting privatization and open markets as the solution to providing water to the worlds developing nations. At the same time international finance institutions, have made privatization a condition for loans to developing countries. Undoubtedly, the same institutions that are given the task to alleviate the poor, such as IMF and the World Bank, are implementing policies that force people who live on a $1 a day to choose between food, shelter or water. As citizens of the richest

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