UN Urges End To "Water Apartheid"
Some may think this too harsh, but I believe this is environmental genocide... A systematic killing of the poor in order for the rich to get the spoils by using the environment as their weapon. And in regards to water it is even more insidious, as water does not exclusively belong to any one person. It is a human right, not a commodity to be bought and sold on a market or used as a weapon of war or a political wedge.
What truly angers me is the "water forums" that take place every year but that never really address the issue of the rich taking advantage of the poor regarding this. They never face the huge corporate conglomerates that are making billions of dollars in profits while poor people(mainly children) in underdeveloped countries die daily of water borne diseases and lack of potable water.
It is IMMORAL for these companies to continue making profit off of a resource that is not a commodity and is in short supply in so many areas of this world where it is most needed. Governments constantly talk about what needs to be done, but it never gets done. It takes DECADES to get anywhere, and in that time span more children die. What is so hard to understand about this? PEOPLE ARE DYING FROM LACK OF WATER AND SANITARY CONDITIONS and we have what we need to make sure THAT DOESN'T CONTINUE. So why does it continue?
Political powerplaying, corruption, greed, prejudiuce, and relying on a World Bank that actually pushes privatization of this resource is all we get because of those who see an opportunity to use a crisis to their advantage rather than act in a moral fashion.
Should we see wars for this resource in the near future, it will be because of the lack of caring on the part of those rich enough to afford it, who don't care about anyone else. It will be because of their arrogance in becoming part of the solution in mitigating this climate crisis which they feel they are not responsible for. It will be because people in countries such as our own did not stand up to demand equal treatment for all and sound fair measures regarding water management. The picture below is a strong indictment of the human race, and we better get our act together, because time is running out.
Read my other entry on this:
When The Gift of Life Becomes Deadly
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UN urges end to 'water apartheid'
By David Loyn
BBC Developing World correspondent
UN Urges End To "Water Apartheid"
Water-borne diseases kill five times as many children as HIV/Aids
A new report from the United Nations Development Programme has demanded a big increase in spending to provide clean water.
The UNDP wants another $4bn (£2bn) a year spent, and says that water has not received the attention it deserves.
Water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea kill far more people than HIV/Aids and malaria combined, it said.
We sometimes lose sight of the sheer depth of inequality
Kevin Watkins, lead author, Human Development Report
And the difference is particularly stark for children: water-borne diseases kill five times as many children as HIV/Aids.
The report says that water is a key part of human development - and warns that, in particular, sub-Saharan Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world in the provision of basic services.
Rich unaffected
The report says that 2.4 billion people in the world do not have access to safe sanitation.
Some steps are simple and can have dramatic results - just putting in a safe standpipe can reduce mortality by 20%.
But Kevin Watkins, the report's author, says that the world needs to think on a much bigger scale than this.
He says a similar initiative is needed as that carried out 100 years ago in major European cities, including London, to provide water and sewage treatment.
Human Development Report 2006: Beyond scarcity [7.8MB]
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Global climate efforts 'woeful'
Back then, diseases such as cholera, carried in dirty water, were affecting the rich as well as the poor.
In the modern world of what Mr Watkins calls "water apartheid", the rich do not suffer in the same way, and the incentives for government to act are less.
"You can't help wondering - if the children of the wealthy were suffering the same fate as the children of the poor regarding water and sanitation, if high income women were also walking four hours a day to collect water - whether something would have been done about it."
"I think something would have happened a long time ago."
Huge costs
The report finds that the big arguments about privatisation in recent years miss the point.
There have been some high-profile failures where western companies have not been able to deliver their promises in developing countries.
Some of the world's poorest are paying the most for their water
But slum dwellers in places including Nairobi in Kenya already pay for private water supplies, delivered by truck.
The amounts they pay are huge and this water is more expensive per litre than in London or New York.
The poorest people in Latin America can pay up to 10% of their household income for water.
Climate change
As well as the loss of life and the cost of disease, the time spent collecting water has other economic effects.
The report calculates that the cost to Africa is equivalent to about 5% of the continent's economic growth, about the same amount of growth as is generated by money received in aid.
Mr Watkins says: "This is one of the biggest potential setbacks to human development in Africa for a century."
But he says that water has been left out of recent announcements on development by the richest countries in the world.
The report does not believe that water represents a major security threat, and the prospect of 'water wars' is not as serious as others have predicted.
But it does warn of severe consequences if there is not a major strategic plan for water use across country borders, especially as climate change reduces the capacity of the poorest countries to grow food for themselves.
Growing inequality
The report highlights the growing gap between rich and poor, not only in income, but also in the provision of basic services.
And it shows the glaring gaps not just between rich and poor countries, but between the rich and poor within developing countries.
Children in Indonesia, for example, are four times as likely to die before their fifth birthday if they are born into the poorest 20% of the population instead of the richest 20%.
And the combined income of the richest 500 people in the world exceeds that of the poorest 416 million.
The report says that one of the central challenges of human development is to "diminish tolerance for the extreme inequalities that have characterised globalisation since the 1990s."
"Globalisation has given rise to a protracted debate over trends in global income distribution, but we sometimes lose sight of the sheer depth of inequality, and how greater equity could dramatically accelerate poverty reduction," Mr Watkins said.
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