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Headlines : CorporationsWater Privatization in Latin America
Civil society organizations have already begun to articulate alternatives to the prevailing model of water privatization. “As an alternative to privatizing trends on the one hand and centralizing ones on the other, when it comes to water management, we propose a model of local and participatory management in which communities devise and execute, in coordination with the pertinent public sector entities, policies aimed at the protection, conservation, and sustainable and equitable use of the resource,” declared the participants of the Central American Civil Society Forum on Water, which took place in the summer of 2005.
*ShiftShapers Solidarities: FTAA Resistance | Stop CAFTA | Globalize This!*
[Posted By ShiftShapers]Republished from IRC Americas
Although transnational water companies have suffered setbacks in places like Puerto Rico, Bolivia, and Uruguay, they continue with plans to appropriate the region’s hydrological resources-rivers, aquifers, wells, and aqueduct systems. While “privatization” has become a loaded term in the water business, companies prefer a softer discourse, employing concepts such as “decentralization,” “civil society participation,” and “sustainable development.”
In April, over 400 participants from Mexico and countries throughout the hemisphere met in Mexico City at the First People’s Workshop in Defense of Water . Organized by the Mexican Center for Social Analysis, Information, and Training (CASIFOP) and Center for Study of Rural Change (CECCAM), the ETC Group, and the Polaris Institute of Canada, the workshop brought together small farmers, indigenous peoples, labor union representatives, members of urban movements, researchers, students, and civil society groups to compare notes and share their experiences with privatized water services and attempts to transfer water management to transnational companies. Participants also discussed possible pathways toward consolidating and furthering the defense of the liquid as a human right for everyone, managed in a sustainable, democratic, and responsible manner.
*New Ways to Privatize Water*
In the course of nearly a hundred brief presentations, workshop participants discussed privatization of water services currently…
Posted by ShiftShapers
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Beautiful job shifty!
Thanks for posting this – this has got to be the most important issue facing humanity in present day. Everything else will be moot once there’s no clean water left (or free access to it).
Thumbs waaaay up for all the links and cross referencing too.
Also, this is the first headline that I’ve seen make it to the frontpage ‘organically’ – that is to say with only us peons voting for it. I’m not saying that it hasn’t happened before, I’ve just never landed on a headline with 39 points before and such a long list of voters – score one for the ‘meritocracy’!
bump – anyone else miss ETA and his regular ‘state of the water’ updates?
How very peculiar that this piece is entitled “The drive to privatize water distribution and resources is gaining steam in Latin America” when it’s very clearly about the drive to stop the Privatizer Bunny.
My heart originally sank when I saw the headline. I think journalists hide content from their editors and sponsors by deliberately misnaming their efforts. Whoever wrote the article is clearly assuming that their harrassed right wing editor is only going to read the headlines because all the way through the piece they’re dramatically misleading. Except for maybe the last two. But I expect they’ve figured out that the guy doesn’t make that far.
So that’s funny.
I’ve clipped this piece for my personal archives. Excellent find. Thanks.
They never stop, enit? What’s next, our air? These people are just obscene. So does anyone have ideas about countervention?
There you go, see?