CBC reports that, “The UN General Assembly designated March 22 as World Water Day in 1992, and it has been observed every year since 1993 to draw attention to the importance of fresh water, particularly for the nearly one billion people without access to clean drinking water and the 2.5 billion without proper sanitation.”
THE WORLD WATER FORUM
The CBC report continues, “The president of the UN General Assembly has been critical of the weeklong World Water Forum in Istanbul, where 23,000 delegates, including government ministers and business people from 192 countries, are discussing global water concerns until March 22. Earlier this week, both Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann and his senior adviser on water, Canadian Maude Barlow, questioned the legitimacy of the forum itself.”
“‘The forum’s orientation is profoundly influenced by private water companies. This is evident by the fact that both the president of the World Water Council and the alternate president are deeply involved with provision of private, for-profit, water services,’ said Barlow, in a speech delivered March 19 on behalf of Brockmann to the People’s Water Forum, a counter-forum to the one in Istanbul.”
“Both also criticized the forum’s draft ministerial declaration, which views water as a human need rather than a human right. ‘As it stands, this important statement undermines the efforts of those who are struggling for access to clean water and sanitation,’ said Barlow, who is also the national chairperson of the Ottawa-based citizens’ advocacy group, Council of Canadians.”
To read this CBC report please go to
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/03/20/f-un-worldwaterday.html
To find World Water Day 2009 resources, activites and events, visit the Council of Canadians website at http://canadians.org/water/issues/World_Water_Day/
THE CURRENT
CBC Radio’s The Current website states, “1.1 billion people in the developing world don’t have access to clean drinking water. 2.6 billion don’t have adequate water for sanitation. And those numbers are likely to get worse thanks to growing populations and climate change. So you’d think it would be an ideal time for the World Water Forum’s stated mission — ‘find solutions to achieve water security.’ But water activists fear there’s another agenda at work. The forum’s main organizer is the World Water Council, a body that is largely made up of big, private water companies like Suez and Veolia. And the protesters say the forum’s real purpose is to push for the privatization of water supplies. Maude Barlow is one of the people sounding the alarm. She’s the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and the Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the United Nations General Assembly. She was in Istanbul, Turkey. World Water Forum.”
To hear the interview with Maude, please go to http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200903/20090320.html
LONDON FREE PRESS
In an article about the growing number of bottled water bans across the country, the London Free Press reports today, “‘Sometimes you hear about global warming and the oceans rising and you feel absolutely helpless to do anything yourself,’ says Maude Barlow, the United Nations’ senior adviser on water, who also spearheaded the Unbottle It! campaign, encouraging bottled water bans in communities. ‘But this is one specific thing that people can do — stop drinking bottled water and you will make a difference in (reducing) greenhouse gases and landfills and garbage and the depletion of individual aquifers.'”
This article is at
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2009/03/21/8832946-sun.html
To read about the Council of Canadians Unbottle It campaign please go to http://canadians.org/water/issues/Unbottle_It/index.html
