Water Privatization

You can survive a few weeks without food, but only a few days without water. It is essential for life, but it is increasingly being treated as a private commodity. 

Bottled Water

Companies that bottle water not only turn a public resource into a private commodity, but they do so by stealing water from communities that actually need it and distributing this water all over the country. Companies such as Nestle, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola use single-use plastic bottles to sell water at a rate thousands of times higher than water from a tap.

Corporate Control of WaterSystems

When urban areas in developed and developing counties are struggling with a crumbling water supply system, financial institutions like the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and other corporations push privatization as the solution.They sell their publicly owned water supply and distribution assets to a private company in hopes that they can more effectively operate the system using their corporate resources (money) to improve water quality and lower costs. The problem is that once the company purchases the water system, they begin acting as a monopoly, raising rates. this makes it much harder for poor people to buy water.

Water privatization can have economic impacts such as job losses and corruption. After supplies become privatized, massive layoffs intended to minimize costs and increase profits usually occur.  Internationally, corporations often target the most vulnerable countries. The World Bank is the largest funder of water management in the developing world, offering loans to developing countries with conditions that require privatization of water and sewer utilities and increased consumer prices for these essential services. Since 1995, The World Bank has lent more than $75 billion for water and sanitation around the world. Loans and finances are channeled through the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

This privatization has created disparities that are unacceptable when it comes to water, as extreme inequality can mean death. The private sector doesn't find it profitable to invest in the infrastructure needed to ensure access to clean and affordable water, which creates unsafe, unclean, and unreliable water sources.

People are fed up

Many cities that signed with water companies with expectations of clean and affordable water are now choosing to terminate these long standing agreements and return to public water systems. The World Bank documents a 34 percent failure rate for all private water and sewage contracts entered into between 2000 and 2010. This is significantly higher than the failure rates of energy (6%), telecommunications (3%), and transportation (7%).  The Transnational Institute, Public Services International Research Unit and the Multinational Observatory report that 180 cities and communities in 35 countries, including Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Paris, Accra, Berlin, La Paz, Maputo and Kuala Lumpur, have all returned to public water systems in the past decade.

In 2013, Corporate Accountability International along with 70 advocates from around the world released an open letter to the World Bank calling for "“an end of all support for private water, beginning with IFC divestment from all equity positions in water corporations.”

With water in the hands of corporations, decisions are being made in favor of private interests, rather than in favor of the people. Corporations are focused on making profits, therefore they lack a social or development mission. They are not in service to the people, they are in service for the money. In order to restore justice with regards to water, decisions for funding must be in the hands of the governments that are naturally accountable to the people.

Clean and affordable water is essential for maintaining life. Water privatization promises vulnerable people a clean, reliable, and cheap water supply, and often fails to provide this service. Prices skyrocket, supply becomes unreliable and unsafe, infrastructure fails and is not maintained, and then these people are bound to contracts that require this continued service. Public institutions, not private corporations, must have authority when it comes to water systems and delivery. Water cannot be treated as another commodity to be profited from, especially in the name of human life.