Water Wars by Vandana Shiva

Author:Vandana Shiva
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2016-05-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

The World Bank, the WTO, and Corporate Control Over Water

Giant water projects, in most cases, benefit the powerful and dispossess the weak. Even when such projects are publicly funded, their beneficiaries are mainly construction companies, industries, and commercial farmers. While privatization is generally couched in rhetoric about the disappearing role of the state, what we actually see is increased state intervention in water policy, subverting community control over water resources. Policies imposed by the World Bank, and trade liberalization rules crafted by the World Trade Organization (WTO), are creating a sweeping culture of corporate-states all over the world.

The World Bank: An Instrument for Corporate Control over Water

Not only has the World Bank played a major role in the creation of water scarcity and pollution, it is now transforming that scarcity into a market opportunity for water corporations. The World Bank currently has outstanding commitments of about $20 billion in water projects, $4.8 billion of which are for urban water and sanitation, $1.7 billion for rural water schemes, $5.4 billion for irrigation, $1.7 billion for hydropower, and $3 billion for water-related environmental projects.1 South Asia receives 20 percent of World Bank water loans.

The Bank estimates the potential water market at $1 trillion.2 After the collapse of the technology stocks, Fortune magazine identified the water business as the most profitable industry for investors.3 Large corporations, such as the biotech giant Monsanto, covet this lucrative market. Monsanto is currently plotting its entry into the water business and is anxiously eyeing the funding available from development agencies:

First we believe that discontinuities (either major policy changes of major trendline breaks in resource quality or quantity) are likely, particularly in the area of water, and we will be well positioned via these businesses to profit even more significantly when these discontinuities occur. Secondly, we are exploring the potential of non-conventional financing (non-governmental organisations, World Bank, USAID, etc.) that may lower our investment or provide local country business-building resources.4

The World Bank’s use of loan conditions to privatize and trade water suits Monsanto well, and the two have already begun to talk of collaboration. Monsanto is “particularly enthusiastic about the potential of partnering with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank” and expects the IFC to “bring both investment capital and on-the-ground capabilities to our efforts.”5 For the company, sustainable development is the conversion of an ecological crisis into a market of scarce resources.

Monsanto estimates that the safe water market is worth billions of dollars. In 2000, the business of safe water provision was estimated to reach $300 million in India and Mexico. This is the amount currently spent by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for water development projects and local-government water-supply schemes; Monsanto hopes to tap these public finances for providing water to rural communities. Where the poor cannot pay, the company plans to create “non-traditional mechanism[s], targeted at building relationship[s] with local government and NGOs as well as through innovative financing mechanisms, such as microcredit.”6

Monsanto also plans to penetrate the Indian market for safe water by establishing a joint venture with Eureka Forbes/TATA, a firm involved in water purification.

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