Inflatable dam at the stairs of St-Charles trainstation, Marseille
Earlier this month Counter Balance participated in the Alternative World Water Forum in Marseille. The alternative forum – better known under its French acronym FAME (Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau) – is a CSO led initiative to counterbalance the official World Water Forum which took place simultaneously but was dominated by the water industry.
Water management is more and more being handed over to private companies and derivatives are being traded on the financial markets hereby subjecting water to the logic of the market. Providing access to water easily conflicts with profit aims and those who have had access to water for centuries might be deprived from it because it is more profitable to build a dam.
Essential to life, water should be a common good available for all. Therefore access to water has been recognised as a human right by the United Nations. However, both its common character and its availability to all are under pressure.
A separate forum was needed to stress the importance of water and to discuss sustainable solutions putting human needs rights first. Counter Balance mainly focused on the issues of large dams and the financialisation of water. Together with International Rivers we organised a public action against the financing of large dams and the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP)
Read our blogs and those from our partners here:
Financialisation of water and the road to Rio+20
Corporate largesse meets scepticism at World Water Forum (Bankwatch)
Why Large Dam Storage is Not the Right Option for Climate Resilience (International Rivers)
Read my T-shirt: No more money for large dams! (Les Amis de la Terre)
Video’s of our public action can be watched here:
Public action against the financing of large dams
Our French member organisation ‘Les Amis de la Terre’ has started a campaign against the financing of harmful large dams. Find out about their negative impact here and sign the petition against the financing of large dams
