Print

April 2006—World Water Forum in Mexico City: The poor are still waiting for water.

The Water Forum in Mexico just concluded. Even if most of the actors present (states, local collectives, sector professionals, NGOs, multilateral agencies…) salute the quality of the organization and the conviviality of exchanges, in reality the results are quite meager.

The recognition of the right to water has not really progressed. As for the financial plan, nothing new. Mexico reaffirms objective seven of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG ) (to reduce by half the amount of people who do not have access to water or to sanitation), but no significant new financing was provoked: public or private, the money for water is not available. And the debate gets stuck on the respective roles of private and public management of water, for it resolves into the question of the role of multinationals in this sector.

Those who still don't have access to water will have to be happy with some of the slim advances made. The technical and financial approach at the local level and the critical implication of the users are both finally recognized as the bearers of success. Promotion of the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) by means of water basins progresses; in addition, these basins seem to be a possible balancing out territory to assure the access to water for the least favored groups.

The poor of the planet will have to continue to wait for water… and the next forum in Istanbul, in two years.

Print