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dam-l Opinion on Hague water forum/LS

This is from the author of the African Water Page
(http://www.africanwater.org/).

Opinion
  Len Abrams

 The Second World Water Forum                               27 March 2000


The Second World Water Forum has come and gone. Certainly an enormous
amount of energy went into preparing for and running the event.
There were an impressive number of people (an estimated 3500 in all) and a
quite bewildering array of activities going on concurrently all the time.
The question of course which needs to be asked is what really happened in
The Hague during those few days in the middle of March.

Was anything really achieved? Did we chip a little from the frontiers of
the water problems facing the world or did we make a giant step
forward? The particular burden which I have to bear in life is that I am a
born cynic and I have a hard time not being cynical about an event
like the Second World Water Forum. It would, however, be both unfair and
inaccurate to say that no good came from the event in relation to its cost.


Firstly it was a great opportunity for the sector to get together and meet
one another. In this respect it was a celebration of the dedication
which so many have put into finding solutions to some of the world's most
pressing problems. There were an impressive number of delegates from Africa
and elsewhere.

Secondly, the organisers must be complimented in general for the show,
notwithstanding the lengthy registration procedure and a few other hitches.

Will the Second World Water Forum be remembered as a landmark of progress
in the water sector, however? I don't think so. I don't think
we were even close, which is a great pity - an opportunity lost. The
process was flawed from the beginning. CS Lewis speaks wisely of the
"fatal attraction" of the inner circle. The club, the fraternity. It is the
allure of power, the mystique of authority which allows people to
believe the falsehood that they are acting in everyone's interest and that
"they know best". It is the same whether it is a company board room,
a Cabinet meeting or an activist's clique. Who is the World Water Council,
where do they derive their mandate? Who appoints the Global
Water Partnership Technical Advisory Committees? And so we had a
beautifully produced and bound World Water Vision and Program of
Action which was presented as a fait accompli even though special meetings
were hurriedly arranged at the last-minute to discuss it. The
results, therefore, are not surprising - no real result, no lasting impact.
If you do not play the game by the rules, you can expect nothing more.
Democracy has due process which cannot be bypassed however much you protest
otherwise.

The forum illustrated once again how polarised the world is. On one extreme
the glitz and money of the private sector was much in evidence
with a definite hard sell edge, and on the other extreme activists bared
all to make their point. Solutions will be found in neither of the
extremes, nor in some washed out middle ground. At the risk of
oversimplification, it is not enough for some NGOs to simply say "no" and
offer only cottage industry solutions to the underserved millions of the
world, nor does the solution lie in the mantra of the mega international
institutions to "privatise" and "recover costs". There is a certain
familiarity at both extremes where the appeal is more to doctrine than to
reason.

Unfortunately history will show that The Hague will not be quoted with the
frequency of Dublin or Rio because there is nothing really to quote.


 Opinion is published occasionally on the African Water Page.  It
represents the independent musings of the author alone and not the opinions
or views of any other person or organisation represented on the Page.
Responses are welcome and   will be published if requested.

 len.abrams@waterpolicy.com

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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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