Opposes World Bank involvement.
The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW21) stands with Environmental Rights Action of Nigeria in solidarity with their struggle to affirm their fundamental right to clean water and independent self-governance. We are deeply troubled that the World Bank and the private water industry are using their formidable financial might and influence to push a water privatization plan in Africa’s biggest city, Lagos, Nigeria, and throughout the Global South.
At the Future of Democracy and Development in Africa and the Caribbean Symposium, in October 2013, the Institute of the Black World 21st Century took a position to stand with the people in Africa and the Caribbean and support them in charting their own course. Interference by the World Bank is not helpful.
For centuries, people in Africa and the diaspora have contended with domination, exploitation, and human rights violations and have waged an ongoing struggle to take control of their own countries. A looming privatization of the Lagos water supply represents a continuation of this unacceptable pattern and must be stopped.
The interference in Nigerian water governance by the World Bank, especially its private arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is an outrage, especially in a country where it has a track record of failing to improve people’s access to water while burdening government with staggering debt. It is particularly troubling given the IFC’s ownership stake in water corporations around the world. This creates conflicts of interest where the World Bank itself is positioned to profit from the water privatization models it propagates.
The people of Nigeria have the right to comprehensive information concerning the World Bank’s and private industry’s activities in their communities, especially with regard to a resource as fundamentally public as water, and they have the right to reject the World Bank’s misguided marketing, promotion, and support of water privatization, including public-private partnerships (PPP). The solutions to water access problems lie not in corporate control of public goods, but rather in strong democratic decision-making and collective investment in water infrastructure for the people who need it.
People and organizations like us, advocates for human rights, social justice, and democracy, are standing with Environmental Rights Action, the people of Nigeria, and people around the world as they work toward strong public water systems. We deplore the World Bank’s conflicts of interest, we reject water privatization, and we call on the World Bank to stay out of the affairs of the people of Lagos.
We ask that you join this movement by signing the petition below and forwarding the link to your friends. We must tell the World Bank that we are watching and that the world says no to the privatization of a human right: water.
Sincerely,
The Institute of the Black World
Statement of support:
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, stand in solidarity with the people of Nigeria to affirm the fundamental right to clean water and independent self-governance. We are deeply troubled that the World Bank and the private water industry are using formidable financial might and influence to push a water privatization plan in the African continent’s biggest city, Lagos, Nigeria, and throughout the Global South.
In support of the campaign being waged by citizens of Lagos, we urge Governor Babatunde Fashola and other decision-makers to stop any form of water privatization, including under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, and instead bolster real solutions that truly address people’s access to water. These solutions lie not in corporate management of public goods, but in collective investment in water infrastructure and democratic decision-making that prioritizes the human right to water over all other objectives.
Sign up your organization by emailing LagosWaterAction@stopcorporateabuse.org
Sign as an individual here:
http://act.stopcorporateabuse.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=16659
