Reasonable access to clean water
is a fundamental human right and its distribution should not be left
solely to private companies seeking profit, a top Vatican official said.
Bishop Mario Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace, told participants at a meeting regarding the future of water
supplies around the world that water is not a commercial product but
rather a common good that belongs to everyone.
People have a "universal and inalienable right" to access, a right that
is so fundamental that "governments cannot leave its management solely
in private hands," he said.
Bishop Toso made his remarks at an international meeting near the
Vatican called "Dammi da bere" (give me something to drink), promoted by
the Catholic-inspired Italian environmental association Greenaccord.
Bishop Toso cited Colombia, Philippines and Ghana as examples of
countries where water management "inspired exclusively by private and
economic criteria" has failed to produce adequate distribution for the
population and where water costs three to six times that of large cities
such as New York or London.
"The great paradox is that poor people pay more than the rich for
something that should be a universal right: the access to drinkable
water," the bishop said. People in poor countries, he said, often suffer
not for the lack of water but because "access is economically
impossible."
Conflicts between peoples over their water supplies, especially in arid
areas, are inevitable without fair and democratic policies regarding the
sharing of water, the bishop said.
He added that many analysts warn that "in the future, following the oil
wars that have characterized the past few decades, we will see new wars
over water." That situation is sure to be aggravated by climate change,
he said.
It is the responsibility of political authorities to mediate between
private interests and public needs, keeping in mind that "the right to
water is the basis for the respect of many other fundamental human
rights."