Among the key ‘common goods’ essential to life, water plays a crucial role. Water is an irreplaceable source of life for the ‘sustainable’ functioning of the Earth’s climate and , consequently, of all human activities and forms of life on Earth.
In recent times, we have lost water as a public common good. It has been stolen from us, and we ourselves have transformed it into something different , external to us. Francis, the saint of Assisi, could no longer call it ‘sister’.
The first significant form of loss of water as a ‘public common good’ began as soon as we treated water as ‘blue gold’, in comparison with oil, which had been regarded since the 19th century as ‘black gold’. To think of water as ‘gold’ is to overturn the conception of water as a ‘source of life’. Gold is materiality, wealth, greed, conquest, conflict, violence. And the rarer gold is, the more it can be appropriated solely by the strongest. The sacredness of water ceases to be expressed in reference to life.
The loss of water as a public common good was cemented at the international level some 50 years ago by the launch of structural adjustment policies by the IMF and the World Bank, following the crisis in the international financial system between 1971 and 1973, accompanied by conditionalities, one of which was the linkage of loan disbursements to the privatisation of the public sector, water in particular. Forcing countries in the Global South to entrust the management of common goods and
services essential to life to ‘international market forces’ has had disastrous consequences, the most significant of which has been the widening of inequalities between the Global North and the Global South. .(1)
The major shift regarding water, however, took place in 1992–94 following the First Earth Summit convened by the UN in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. At the UN International Conference on Water and the Environment held in Dublin in March 1992 in preparation for the Summit, the international community endorsed The Four Dublin Principles on Water, of which the 4th principle, the most concrete and politically influential, states: “Water, used for multiple purposes, has economic value and should therefore be recognised as an economic good”. (2 )
The Dublin Declaration states: “By virtue of this principle, it is essential to recognise the fundamental human right to safe water and adequate sanitation at an affordable price” This means that access to water, even if recognised as a right, must be paid for! Gone are the days of free universal rights. (3) It goes on to say: “The economic value of water has long been overlooked (…). Treating water as an economic good and managing it accordingly paves the way for the efficient use and equitable distribution of this resource, as well as its preservation and protection.” Therefore, , according to the dominant economic paradigm, the management of an ‘economic good’ must be carried out in accordance with the principles and mechanisms of the capitalist market economy. Hence the global spread of processes of commodification, deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation……
Finally, the financialisation of nature completes the reversal. The principle of monetising nature was endorsed by the Second Earth Summit (Rio+10) in Johannesburg in 2002. Twenty years later, in Montreal in December 2022, the UN COP15 on Biodiversity officially enshrined the financialisation of nature based on the principle that every element of nature must be considered ‘natural capital’ and, therefore, a ‘financial asset’, managed according to the principles and logic of global financial markets. (4)
It has been a long road, but despite opposition from millions of citizens and entire peoples—not only indigenous communities (I am thinking of Italy, where, in June 2011, 97% of voters said no to the privatisation of water in a national referendum), (5) the ‘lords’ of finance have so far succeeded in casting aside the principle of water as a public common good, one of the pillars upon which ‘a good society’ had been built.
Is it possible to regenerate water as a global public common good?
Contrary to what is written in The Dublin Declaration, it must be acknowledged that, thirty-four years later, placing water management under the sway of capitalist economic concepts and technocratic visions has indeed led humanity and the Earth.to a water apocalypse (6) A recent report by the United Nations University speaks, in more moderate terms, of a global water bankruptcy. (7)
We are familiar with the damning figures, of which a single one—the most significant—is sufficient: 4.4 billion people lack regular, sufficient and safe access to drinking water (to be considered alongside the 4.5 billion people lacking basic healthcare coverage)!
We have just learnt that there have now been mutual bombings of seawater desalination plants in the Middle East between Iran, Israel and other countries in the region. Yet all these countries depend on desalination plants for 60–80% of their fresh water supply.
Such a situation cannot continue. The Apocalypse cannot be the future of humanity and the Earth. Signs of resistance and revolt against this world are emerging almost everywhere. Yes, the world will change, for the desire for justice and equality in dignity, and the power of solidarity and peace, are like bacteria: they never die.
Notes
(1) Despite some changes, the conditionalities remain in force. See https://www.cetri.be/Economies-du-Sud-toujours-sous, 2022
(2)https://www.space4water.org/water/dublin-principles#:~:text=The%201992%20Dublin%20Conference%20established,based%20on%20a%20participatory%20approach%2C
(3) By ‘free access’ to drinking water, we mean that the costs are covered by the community via public finances, as is the case with military expenditure
(4)https://www.pressenza.com/fr/2023/02/cop15-biodiversite-et-financiarisation-de-la-nature/
(5) https://altreconomia.it/inchiesta-acqua-pubblica/
(6) Seventeen years ago, in an opinion piece published in La Libre Belgique, I already spoke of a ‘water apocalypse’. See https://www.lalibre.be/debats/opinions/2009/04/22/comment-eviter-lapocalypse-hydrique-OSWDTBYUWZDH3GMLYC763DOFZM/
(7) https://unu.edu/inweh/collection/global-water-bankruptcy
A more extensive and detailed version containing further statistical data and reference notes is available on the website agora-humanite.org of the Agora of the Inhabitants of the Earth