STWR - Share The World's Resources

One of the more surreal sessions at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos had oil industry experts explaining how the melting of the polar ice cap – which is occurring faster than anyone anticipated ­– represents not only a problem, but also an opportunity: vast amounts of oil may now be accessible.

Similarly, these experts concede that the fact that the United States has not signed the Law of the Sea, the international convention determining who has access to offshore oil and other maritime mineral rights, presents a risk of international conflict. But they also point to the upside: the oil industry, in its never-ending search for more reserves, need not beg Congress for the right to despoil Alaska.

President George W. Bush has an uncanny ability not to see the big message. For years, it has become increasingly clear that much is amiss with his energy policy. Scripted by the oil industry, even members of his own party referred to an earlier energy bill as one that “left no lobbyist behind.” While praising the virtues of the free market, Bush has been only too willing to give huge handouts to the energy industry, even as the country faces soaring deficits.

“Life in society is not possible without sharing; sharing knowledge, values and resources. Amongst the latter, water is the most precious because it is essential to all forms of life. Every person has a right to water and a duty to offer it to his fellow men.” (Marc Gentilini, President, French Red Cross, 2004).

As Britain's largest water company announced last week that it will be imposing a ban on London’s hosepipes and sprinklers from next month due to “serious water shortages”, we are forced to acknowledge that the Earth as a whole is getting thirstier as unprecedented increases in consumption and pollution are diminishing already limited global reserves.

There is however a significant difference between water shortages around the world not being able to wash your car once a week is massively different to not having enough water to maintain levels of personal sanitation in order to ward of life-threatening disease. The UN reports that 1 billion people lack access to improved water supply, and globally 2.4 billion people lack access to improved sanitation.

Yesterday, on World Water Day, the UN officially presented its 2nd World Water Development Report at the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico. This report promises to place a focus on the central role of water use and allocation in poverty alleviation and socio-economic development, identifying poor governance as the greatest cause of the current water crisis. Key problems include corruption, stagnated budgets, declining levels of development assistance and investment in the water sector, inadequate institutions and limited stakeholder participation.

Wednesday marks World Water Day, an international observance that grew out of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development more than a decade ago.

It's a day for repeating the terrible numbers: More than a billion people on the planet don't have access to clean water. Nearly 2 billion don't have adequate sewage and sanitation. Dirty water kills two children every minute.

These heart-rending statistics are driven home with images of thirsty children and intense warnings about future water wars and the coming water crisis.

It's all true, sort of. Because, like so many dire warnings and images, these are designed to provoke a charitable, uncritical, mass response: Because things are so bad, let's all pull together to provide water and sanitation.

In 1997 the world’s first water forum was held in Marrakech by the World Water Council, where it was agreed that a mandate was needed to develop a long-term ‘Vision for Water, Life and the Environment in the 21st Century.’

The challenge they set themselves almost ten years ago, has only increased in scale as meeting humanity’s needs for water in the face of increasing demand and depleting supply is now a huge issue facing many countries.

In 2000 the World Water Forum met for the second time in The Hague to thrash out what this Vision was and how it could materialise. It was noted that the world’s water resources needed to be managed to provide for future needs, and that responsibility and commitment was needed from the governments and stakeholders who had control over the policies which affect global water supplies. Central to this Vision are the principles of collaboration, partnership and innovation and the sharing of experience and knowledge of different organisations involved in global water politics.

At the dawn of the third millennium, three-quarters of the world's 852 million men and women suffering from hunger are found in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their survival. Most of them are landless farmers or have such tiny or unproductive plots of land that they cannot feed their families.