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Often taken for granted, 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, water became unaffordable, then our lives would be detrimentally transformed. Billions of people are already experiencing and suffering from the mismanagment 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 a week, 90 percent of whom are children (WHO/UNICEF:2005). Exclusion to socially necessary goods and services has horrific consequences that are catastrophic, yet entirely preventable.
Access to and control of water have been contentious issues for centuries. Most recently this struggle has taken the form of a conflict over the increasing commercialisatoin, privatisation and liberalisation of fresh water goods and services. This shift in regulation, which has been introduced throughout much of the world by way of neo-liberal policy reform, can be characterised not only by its nature - an inrease in private sector particpation in the water sector and thus a reliance on the free market as the model upon which society structures all forms of social reproduction - but also the geo-political climate within which this shift takes place, namely, the era of economic globalisation.
This shift is indeed facilitated by economic globalisation and carried out by the processes that characterise neoliberal policy reform, including, deregulation, privatisation and liberalisation. These processes, however, have done much more than just facilitate a shift from public to private sector. When it comes to governing resources which hitherto were considered public goods or part of the global commons, neo-liberal policies have changed the nature and structure of governance. The shift in regulatory power has meant a reduction, and in some cases and outright eclipse, in the planning capacity of local, regional and national authorities.
The content and ongoing development of the Water Portal is a reflection of the concerns with the increasing commodification and privatisation of fresh water goods and services. Included within the Water Portal, under the categories section, is a "Water: Concepts" link that serves as a conceptual tool for understanding some of the key concepts and ideas that shape the public/ private water discourse and debate.
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