From 18-24 May 2024, Bali, Indonesia will host the 10th World Water Forum (WWF). This triennial event, convened by the corporate-driven World Water Council (WWC), brings together politicians, public agencies, academics, select civil society organizations, multilateral institutions and the private sector to address global water challenges. Marketed as a multi-stakeholder water governance space, the WWF is dominated by Northern donor countries, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and some of the world’s largest multinational corporations. These actors seek to pressure governments at all levels—especially in the South—to privatize water and sanitation systems and develop market-based solutions to intensifying global water crises including drought, scarcity and climate disasters, 90% of which are water related.
The accumulated evidence, however, overwhelmingly demonstrates that the market-based restructuring of the water sector exacerbates many of the pressing problems we are told it seeks to address. These reforms increase costs for households and public budgets while granting easier access to water-intensive and water polluting industries. Indeed, the WWF agenda threatens democratic control of water and equitable access for small farmers, rural communities, the urban poor and other marginalized and vulnerable populations. These threats are increasingly dire in the context of a world struggling to emerge from the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic amidst climate chaos, economic crisis and proliferating conflict.
Despite the catastrophic risks this agenda entails, especially for the exploited and marginalized whose voices continue to be ignored and sidelined in global water governance spaces, the WWF continues to provide a platform for the world’s richest and mightiest water profiteers. But frontline water defenders and communities will not be silenced! Water justice movements from around the world will gather at the People’s Water Forum (PWF) 2024 in Bali, Indonesia from 21-23 May, to challenge the corporate capture of global water governance at the WWF, consolidate the global network of water justice movements and champion public and community water alternatives that can truly realize water justice for all.
Read the full PWF 2024 overview here.