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Water is already a US$400-billion global business, yet priva- tised water so far only accounts for 10 per cent of the world's water utilities. The World Water Commission argues that only private firms can provide the enormous capital, which it estimates at US$180 billion a year, needed to fix the world's water prob- lems. This entails eliminating generalised subsidies for water and replacing them with prices which offer an attractive return on investment. ensured operation and maintenance. Again, many farmers and especially lower-income users contributed their services as in-kind contributions to the cost. Appropriate low-cost technology such as treadle pumping of shallow groundwater was widely adopted for holders of small plots. All operation and maintenance subsidies were eliminated. Indirect subsi - dies to operating costs, such as energy, were also eliminated. This had a major impact on water management in India, which in 2005-15 discouraged groundwater overpumping by gradually eliminating subsidies for the energy to pump water from wells. WORLD WATER VISION—OR NIGHTMARE? gradually eliminating subsidies for the energy to pump water If we proceed with our "business as usual" approach to water, from wells. then the limits of natural and socioeconomic systems will be reached by 2025, the World Water Council warns in World Water The most important point about having a vision is also have a Vision. At best, we will experience chronic problems, and cata- framework for action to implement the vision. Apart from the strophes may trigger regional and even global crises. The Vision appointment of the high-profile World Water Commission, the does not elaborate upon exactly what these World Water Council spawned a sister entity, crises may be, suffice to say that they can be the Global Water Partnership, to develop and staved off by moving to full-cost pricing for guide a "Framework for Action". all water services. The Framework document, like all of the Chapter four of World Water Vision takes documents presented by the World Water a futuristic look at what the world will be Council and its offshoots, uses rhetoric and like in the year 2025. Life under the Vision The World Water coloured language in an attempt to make will be much different from now: ar recommendations sound more palatable. By 2010, public and private utilities Commission argues References to gender, community were generally applying full cost that only private firms empowerment and land reform help paint recovery...because some low-income . what are far-reaching proposals to expand households could not afford water, can provide the and reinforce corporate power over the Thea heschotds so than thee could pos enormous capital, othe document coniains actions that gov- for water to meet their basic needs. which it estimates at ernments should take to implement the Me foment ake comctud M_ US$180 billion a year, MM yr, Srey eer through their labour for needed to fix water sector (national treatment), the world’s water problems. installation and operation. whereby transnational corporations are given the same treatment as local enter- prises and/or public authorities; trans- parency in government procurement of water contracts; trade facilitation, where governments should be more ser- vice-oriented to the private sector; and privatisation as much as feasible, with mixed public-private partnership agree- their daily bread—or, in this case, their ments being the next best thing. Other daily water. recommendations include: the removal Further along in the Vision, water subsidies for the poor (and of all price and trade distorting subsidies; dispute settlement over Exactly how the labour of billions of poor people could be used "in kind" for "installation and operation" is not addressed. One can only assume that the Vision would see a return to the days of feudal overlords, when the poor served as slaves who worked for possibly even the poor themselves) are wiped out, along with sub- water issues; promotion of agricultural biotechnologies; protec- sidies for agricultural water: tion of property rights over water resources; and the demand for a A new round of negotiations of the World Trade stable and predictable investment climate, which would reinforce Organization in 2010 agreed to add water subsidies to the investor rights.’ list of unacceptable subsidies to inputs for agriculture. As this policy was implemented in the years that followed, food THE WORLD BANK: "A world full of poverty" * prices from exporting countries rose slightly, improving farm Several years ago, Dr Ismail Serageldin, Vice-President of the incomes in developing countries. Prices eventually stabilised World Bank, said that the wars of the 21st century will be about around their previous level, but low-income urban dwellers water.’ To respond to the escalating crisis, the World Bank has felt the pinch of higher food prices while they lasted. adopted a policy of water privatisation and full-cost water pricing. Tha af tha Dan tha 1007 wo Commission argues that only private firms enormous capital, which it estimates at US$180 billion a year, _ heeded to fix problems. THE WORLD BANK: "A world full of poverty" * Several years ago, Dr Ismail Serageldin, Vice-President of the World Bank, said that the wars of the 21st century will be about water.’ To respond to the escalating crisis, the World Bank has adopted a policy of water privatisation and full-cost water pricing. The basis of the Bank's policies are outlined in the 1992 paper "Improving Water Resources Management", which discusses the importance of pricing and other incentives which encourage con- sumers to adopt efficient water use practices based upon the rela- tive value of the water: Charging fees for domestic and industrial water supplies is generally straightforward. In most cases, use can be metered and fees can be charged according to the volume and Commenting on the full-cost pricing of water for agriculture, the Vision says: As a first step, governments had begun decentralising responsibility for operation and maintenance to cooperatives or to private owners—a trend accelerated in the first years of the new century. Because farmers depended on the proper functioning of these systems for their livelihoods, they APRIL —- MAY 2001 NEXUS + 27 The World Water can provide the the world's water www.nexusmagazine.com