Tuesday, March 22, 2005

World Water Day: EU Urged to Stop Privatization

About 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion people to sanitation.
Approximately 5 percent of the world's water is run by the private sector but 95 percent of that is by European companies.
But the group of NGOs says the "water privatization wave" during the last decade has "proven a failed experiment."
"Concrete experiences in developing countries have shown that multinational water corporations are ill-equipped to deliver clean and affordable water to the poor. Private sector investment has not brought the expected financing for water and sanitation for the poor," they say in the letter.
"We believe that faced by experiences of what works combined with the failure of the global private sector, the time has come to refocus the global water debate to the key question: how to improve and expand public water delivery around the world?"

No comments: