{"id":3554,"date":"2017-03-22T15:38:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T15:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/waterlat.org\/?page_id=3554"},"modified":"2025-11-27T13:20:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:20:20","slug":"water-day-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/roxpublicidade.com.br\/waterlat\/01\/water-day-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reflection on World Water Day 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Reflection on World Water Day 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

On World Water Day 2017<\/strong>, we take advantage of the lessons that keep arriving from the Global North so we can avoid making the same mistakes in water politics and management worldwide. Today, the British newspaper The Guardian<\/a> published a report about London\u2019s private water company given a record fine for failing to comply with environmental standards. It related to “huge leaks of untreated sewage [emptied] into the Thames and its tributaries and on to land [… that] led to serious impacts on residents, farmers, and wildlife, killing birds and fish”. The report cites the UK Environment Agency stating that the events were \u201ccatastrophic\u201d, and Judge Francis Sheridan, who said \u201cThis is a shocking and disgraceful state of affairs. It should not be cheaper to offend than to take appropriate precautions\u201d. Read here the full report<\/a>.
\nThe events referred to in the report are part of a long-term pattern, a structural problem, as previous fines and admonitions had failed to move the company to improve its standards, for the best part of three decades. In fact, after almost three decades of relentless implementation of privatization policies in the water and sanitation sector worldwide, the evidence keeps mounting about the fact that this is not the way forward. Members of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network’s Thematic Area 3<\/a> have been contributing to this debate for many years, for instance through the PRINWASS Project<\/a>, and our Publications<\/a>, including our Working Papers Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Photography<\/span>: PRINWASS project academics participating with civil society and social movements in demonstrations against water privatization, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 23 January 2003.
\n\"PRINWASS<\/a>