Water Portal

Welcome to the Water Portal on Spinprofiles

Welcome to the Water Portal on Spinprofiles—your guide to networks of power, lobbying and deceptive PR within the water industry. This water portal will track and profile global and regional governing institutions, lobby associations, policy planning organisations, think tanks and agents all involved in the water industry. It will include those of a pro-privatisatisation persuasion but also those who are promoting an alternative vision orientated towards publicly owned and participatory systems. Spinprofiles has a policy of strict referencing and is overseen by an Managing editor and a Sysop and several Associate Portal editors. The Editors of the Water Portal are Tommy Kane and Kyle Mitchell. Priority pages on Water International Water Association World Commission on Water for the 21st Century (WCW) Water UK Water Integrity Network International Chamber of Commerce European Services Forum Margaret Catley-Carlson DFID European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Scottish CBI Regulatory Policy Institute GATS Coca-Cola (This is a list of pages that need work - See more...)

Context of the Water Debate Water is vital to life. It is the essential component in all aspects and activities related to our well-being and existence – including food and energy production and manufacturing in general. It’s clear that if our water supply continues to dwindle, and/or, if water became unaffordable, our lives would be detrimentally transformed. Billions of people are already experiencing and suffering from the mismanagement and unequal allocation of water. Between 1.1 and 1.5 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation. 2.2 million people die each year due to low quality drinking water and/or lack of sanitation – that is 42,000 people per week, 90 percent of whom are children (WHO/UNICET:2005). Exclusion to socially necessary goods and services such as fresh water has horrific consequences that are catastrophic, yet entirely preventable. The struggle over fresh water goods and services has taken the form of a conflict over increasing commercialisation, privatisation and liberalisation. This struggle takes place in an era of economic globalisation where neoliberal policies transform all forms of social reproduction so that all goods and services that were once held in common (things such as fresh water, education and healthcare etc.) are increasingly exposed to the free market and in many cases transformed into a form of private property. This regulatory shift – from public to private – is by no means inevitable. The processes that facilitate this shift are a direct result of political and corporate elites exercising their power and will, through an organised network of connections, in order to achieve the free market conditions that are necessary to expand the reach of capital. The Water Portal of SpinProfiles intends to expose and document the interlocking relationships between the political and corporate water elites. The aggregated contributions on the Water Portal will ultimately reveal the elite social structure within which these elites operate, thus exposing the global water industry accordingly. Issues Economic globalisation and the increasing commercialisation of fresh water goods and services: deregulation, commodification, privatisation and liberalisation. Public versus private provision of fresh water goods and services. Water scarcity: a real crisis or an imbalance between production, distribution and consumption in the context of global capitalism? Transnational water corporations and the enclosure of the fresh water commons. The water lobby. Global governance of the local commons. Water and human rights. Recent Articles on Water on Alternet <rss>http://www.alternet.org/module/feed/rss/blogs/water/</rss>

Categories There are a list of categories associated with this page: Water Water: International Policy Initiatives Water: People Water: Advocates for Privatisation of Scottish water Water: European Actors Water: Governing Institutions Water: Media Water: NGO's Water: Regulators Water: Think Tanks Water: Transnational Lobby Networks Water: UK Actors Water: Industry Water: Concepts Recent changes to pages on Water Recent Changes to pages on Water Recent changes to pages on People involved with the Water industry Recent Changes to pages on Water: International Policy Initiatives Recent changes to pages on Water: Advocates for Privatisation of Scottish water Recent Changes to pages on Water Recent changes to pages on People involved with the Water industry Recent Changes to pages on Water Recent changes to pages on People involved with the Water industry <DynamicArticleList> title=Newest Pages type=new count=10 </DynamicArticleList> <DynamicArticleList> title=Recently Updated Articles type=update count=10 </DynamicArticleList> References and Resources Water Articles: Karen Bakker, Neoliberalizing Nature? Market Environmentalism in Water Supply in England and Wales, Forum on Privatisation and the Public Domain, 2005. Karen Bakker, Water: commons or commodity? The Forum of Privatisation and the Public Domain, 2003. Maude Barlow, Our Water Commons – Toward a new fresh water narrative, Council of Canadians, 2008. Maude Barlow & Tony Clarke, Who Owns Water? The Nation, 2002. Grusky, Sara & Maj Fiil-Flynn, Will the World Bank Back Down? Water Privatization in a Climate of Global Protest 2004, Public Citizen, 2004. Friends of the Earth, Privatization: Nature for Sale; The Impacts of Privatizing Water and Biodiversity, Friends of the Earth, 2005. David Hall & Emanuele, Lobina, Water as a Public Service, PSIRU, 2006. Erik Swyngedouw, Privatising H20: Turning Local Waters into Global Money, Austrian Journal of Development, 2003. Water Websites: Right to Water Launched by the Blue Planet Project, this is an excellent website with an extensive list of water resources. Blue Planet Project A global initiative working with partners around the world to achieve the goal of water justice. Council of Canadians Canada’s largest citizen’s organisation which promotes progressive policies in their numerous campaigns including, water, health care, trade, energy, food and peace amongst others. On the Commons A network of citizens and organisations that champions the cause of the commons on many fronts. Water Books: Barlow, Maude (2007), ‘Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water’, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Barlow, Maude, & Clarke, Tony, (2002), ‘Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World’s Water’, Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited. Black, Maggie, (2004), ‘The No-nonsense Guide to Water’, Toronto: New Internationalist Publications. Clarke, Tony, (2005), ‘Inside the Bottle: An Expose of the Bottled Water Industry’, Ottawa: Polaris Institute. Holland, Sjolander, Ann-Christin, (2005), ‘The Water Business: Corporations Versus People’, Black Point: Fernwood Publishing. Shiva, Vandana (2002), ‘Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, Profit’, Cambridge Massachusetts: South End Press.

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