Ben Duncan - World Water Day
Cllr Ben Duncan (PPC, Brighton Kemptown) was part of an event in Brighton and Hove at the weekend to draw attention to World Water Day. Here, he gives his thoughts on how water, trade, aid and privatisation are linked:
Today is World Water Day - a time for us to focus on the fact that some 4,000 children somewhere in the world die every day as a direct result of their lack of access to clean, safe, drinking water.
Billions around the world are affected by water shortages every year - as well as causing death, disease and poverty, water scarcity is fuelling conflicts, pushing up food prices in the developing world - and making life harder for millions of subsistence farmers, many of whom are forced to give up land which they and they families have cultivated for generations and migrate to slums on the edge of cities in an desperate search for work - and survival.
Yet international organisations like the World Bank and the trade rules our political leaders broker in our name are making the problem worse - by forcing water privatisation on communities in the developing world (in some cases this has actually made it illegal for farmers to collect and use rainwater!) - and encouraging developing nations to allow water-hungry export industries to set up shop in ‘water-stressed' areas.
Although there isn't a specific Human Right to Water - it's clear that such a right follows from many other human rights guarantees - specifically the right to life itself.
I think we need to increase the amount of aid we give to water projects, we need to abandon the World Bank - and many of its rules - in favour of a General Agreement on Sustainable Trade - and we need to recognise the specific Right to Water, and begin prosecuting national leaders who fail to deliver it for everyone living in their countries.
On Saturday, I was honoured to say a few words launching a Water Aid stunt outside Brighton Town Hall - the charity was trying to get in the Guinness Book of Records by forming the longest toilet queue in history to try and draw attention to World Water Day.
I don't know if they broke the record - I'll let you know when I do - but they managed to get The Brighton Argus to promise a story on global water issues, a fantastic achievement in itself.
Of course, we've had a long, wet winter here - and the issues of water supply we face in Brighton Kemptown are more likely to be about the way water charges are worked than the taps not working.
I am working closely with the city's High Rise Action Group - and Southern Water - to try and roll out water meters in blocks of flats - both to bring down charges and create an incentive for tenants to waste less water in the first place.
But the global and local issues are connected - by the spectre of privatisation.
We need to ban the ridiculous - and largely harmful - practise of allowing water to be traded just like any other commodity. It's the very stuff of life and I find the idea that someone can profit out of its supply absolutely appalling.
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