World Commission on Water for the 21st Century

The World Commission on Water for the 21st Century (WCW) was established in partnership by the UN and the right-wing/pro-privatisation think tank World Water Council following the 1st World Water Forum in Marrakech (1997). The Commission was charged with the responsibility of developing a global policy document on water governance and management with the purpose of building “consensus among professionals and stakeholders”. The commission presented their report, entitled “World Water Vision: Making Water Everybody’s Business”, at the 2nd World Water Forum in March 2000 in The Hague. The commission’s policy recommendations are undoubtedly in line with the World Water Council; after all, the report was authored by former president of the World Water Council William Cosgrove and Frank R. Rijsberman who was an active policy contributor within global water community, working on such documents and projects as the Dublin Statement, the water-related Millennium Development Goals and the World Water Forum (second forum) and working with such organisations as the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and the World Water Council (WWC).

In addition to the authors, the Commission included notorious corporate executives and political figures advocating the neoliberal reform of public water infrastructure and delivery. At the time of the reports publishing the chairperson of the WCW was former vice-president of the World Bank Ismail Serageldin and a handful of members and advisors included: former president of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and current chairperson of the Global Water Partnership Margaret Catley-Carlson; former executive director of water transnational Suez Jerome Monod; former president of the Inter-American Development Bank and member of the Camdessus Panel that produced the infamous Camdessus Report Enrique Iglesias; former World Bank advisor and chairperson and CEO of World Bank-founded Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Mohamed El-Ashry; former World Bank president Robert S. McNamara; former president of Power Corporation of Canada and former head of Canada’s External Aid Office (now recognised as Canadian International Development Agency) Maurice Strong; and former vice-presidents and two of the three founding members of the World Water Council Aly Shady and Rene Coulomb.

The report argues that current global investment in water needs to increase by $90 to $100 billion a year to approximately $180 billion and that this investment should come mainly from the private sector and communities. The commission suggests, “pricing water to produce the cash flow for future investments and for operation and maintenance should go a long way towards making this (investment) possible”. Moreover, the commission proposes that this funding should come, in large part, by way of the private sector; in fact, the report intimates that governments need not necessarily increase investments in water. Using a common tactic of the neoliberal camp when arguing for increased private sector participation, the commission attacks public sector efficiency suggesting that public agencies in both the First and Third World have “become inefficient, unregulated, and unaccountable.” The commission argues for an institutional, regulatory and legal shift that would facilitate increased private sector involvement through the rule of law.

In terms of their view on pricing water, the report is forthright in its support of full cost recovery noting: “Making water available at low cost, or for free, does not provide the right incentive to users. Water services need to be priced at full cost for all users, which means all costs related to operation and maintenance and investment costs for at least domestic and industrial users. The basic water requirement needs to be affordable to all, but this can be done more effectively than by making all water available to all users at way below cost. Pricing water will provide an incentive for the private sector, large and small, domestic and international, to get involved”.