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UNDP Calls for End to Water Apartheid
Submitted by Patricia Jones on Thu, 11/09/2006 - 6:04pm.
The U.N. Development Program released its annual report today with some of the strongest language yet focusing on a critical issue facing our human family, calling for an end to "water apartheid" by implementing the human right to water. Debunking the myth that the crisis is the result of scarcity, this report argues poverty, power, and inequality are at the heart of the problem."
It couldn't have come a day sooner. Today, UUSC signed on to a shareholder resolution initiated by and coordinated by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, calling on the board of the Coca-Cola Company to commission a study of its operations overextracting water resources in water-scarce areas, particularly in India. Sister Gwen Ferry of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is leading the effort.
Today, with the help of the Environmental Defender Law Center, UUSC assisted its program partner Mi Cometa with a pro bono attorney who will write a model brief on the human right to water for use in the 2005 hepatitis A poisoning case, the result of a failing concession of a Bectel subsidiary. Two children died during the water shut-offs related to this hepatitis A outbreak in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Today, the Coalition Against Water Privitization in South Africa has called for international support for their case in the South African courts on the right to water for the residents of Johannesburg neighborhoods. South Africa is the first country to enshrine a right to water in its constitution. Water services are provided by a public institution managed by a private company. Johanesburg Water has defined the "right to water" as 25 liters per person per day.
The U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the World Health Organization say that 40-60 liters per person per day is the minimum standard. The UNDP calls the inequitable distribution of water services and resources "water apartheid." The people of Guayaquil and Johannesburg bear witness. We're running out of time.
