No safe water for a billion poor

Felipe Ramirez, 9, pours water into a container before the 5 km journey back to his village of Xaxamayo in the Mexican state of Puebla. Picture / Reuters

MEXICO CITY - Ten years ago, many poor countries hoped private cash would bring safe water to the 1 billion people in the world who lack it, but corporate interest in the developing world is drying up in the face of weak profits and strong protests.

After pumping about $25 billion (NZ$39bn) into water supply and sanitation in developing countries in the 1990s, many companies have retreated or reduced their presence in places as far apart as Bolivia, South Africa and Indonesia.

Delegates at the World Water Forum that started in Mexico City on Thursday said a new injection of investment and ideas was needed to meet a UN goal of halving by 2015 the number of people without safe drinking water.

Relying on private business to reach that target, one of the UN Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, is increasingly difficult, said Daniel Zimmer, a senior member of the body organising the meeting.

"The hope that we had in the 1990s that the private money would really substantially help the achievements of the MDGs has obviously been seen now as something unrealistic because of the opposition to private participation," he said.

"We have to invent new partnerships, he said. "Only if we are able to have strong public services, only then can we have strong partnerships with the private sector."

Mexican riot police brought metal crowd-control barriers to the main Reforma Avenue before a protest near the meeting in one of the capital's wealthiest neighbourhoods.

Opponents of the water forum say it is geared towards rich nations and large corporations, excludes developing countries and may be promoting privatisation.

The World Water Forum's ruling body is made up of members from governments, international organisations like the World Bank, scientists and business people.

Public opposition is growing to basic water services being used as a profit-making activity, said Maude Barlow, a Canadian activist who has written a book criticising water privatisation.

"We are building an international movement based on the notion that water is a human right and therefore cannot be traded and cannot be sold for profit," she said.

"The kind of resistance they have run into really has given the big companies pause to think."

Barlow said French company Suez failed to live up to expectations in providing fresh water and sewage systems to hundreds of thousands of people in Bolivia.

Protests in the town of El Alto against water charges in 2003 forced the government to scrap a contract with Suez.

The French company says privatisations it has carried out in Latin America have helped rescue crumbling water systems previously run poorly by public companies.

Growing populations are putting greater stress on water and sewage systems throughout the world.

"There is a human tragedy unfolding around the world caused by lack of water and sanitation," said Barbara Frost of British aid group WaterAid. "People are dying because the international aid community and national governments are not listening to the poor."

- REUTERS