Leis, Wet country

Wet country
by Raúl Leis R. --- raulleisr@hotmail.com

500 million people in the world suffer from an almost total lack of potable water, and if things keep going the way they are that number is going to quintuple in the next decade --- what I'm trying to say is that one out of every three people will be affected by this situation, especially in the underdeveloped regions. Although Panama, after Nicaragua, is the country with the second largest water resources in the Central American region, currently 11 percent of our population lacks running potable water services, and between 27 and 35 percent of the people get the most vital liquid only irregularly.

The greatest threats to access to potable water are environmental degradation/predation and corporate globalization. The first, by way of deforestation and desertification; the second, by way of the privatization of water as a growing phenomenon that's exported with fallacious arguments about free trade, economic development and debt reduction.

Ecuador has taken an important step in the right direction by the National Constituent Assembly's approve of various article about water resources, as in these three principles: 1. Water is a strategic national resource for public use, and as such all forms of private appropriation are prohibited; 2. The right to water is a fundamental and inalienable human right; and 3. The provision of water is an exclusively public or community service, and in this way those who would attempt to convert water into merchandise are stopped.

They also give priority to that irrigation that guarantees the food supply. Together with a number of transitory measures like the draft of a new water resources law that will regulate current and future water use permits and provide for their terms, conditions and auditing and review mechanisms, which leaves the finalization of this law's details pending widespread public participation, so that the means can be set in place to end inequities and abuses in the division and use of water.

They will conduct an audit of the private companies that provide water services at the time that the new constitution takes effect. The results will allow the redefinition or termination of these companies' contracts, leaving open the formulation of provisions for auditing, oversight and guarantees of civic participation in the water utilities' decisions.

As Dennis García and Juan Martínes wrote about civil society, "All those of us who have committed ourselves to water have been able to "wet" the new constitution. But the job isn't finished --- we still have big tasks that are pending and we have to pay attention to the work that the members of the committee that's drafting the new constitution are doing. This is only a first step. There's still much do to to guarantee that what we are able to put into the constitution won't be a dead letter."

In Panama we would have to "wet" not only the constitution and laws, but also public policies, election platforms, debate agendas, and all of the social, political and economic actors in all of society, as the subject of water is crucial for both the present and future of Panama.

opinion