The World's Water: should it be privatised? - PUBLIC MEETING - 7.30pm -
Wednesday 13 April
Oxford Town Hall
Every year over two million people die because of the unclean water they are forced to drink. Many more - particularly women and children - have their lives disrupted by the need to walk miles to collect water.
Wednesday 13 April
Oxford Town Hall
Every year over two million people die because of the unclean water they are forced to drink. Many more - particularly women and children - have their lives disrupted by the need to walk miles to collect water.
UK aid money is supposed to be helping change that. But last year our Government wasted millions of pounds of aid, paying private consultancy companies to promote a failed solution to the water crisis.
IMF driven reforms in Nicaragua resulted in a doubling of the price of water between 1994 and 2000. As a result many poor families couldn’t afford to pay for it and were forced to obtain water from untreated sources or forgo basics like education or medical care.
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The Oxford Trade Justice Coalition and the Oxford-Leon Association have organised a public meeting on the theme of ‘water’, as part of the Global Week of Action 10-16 April 2005. The speakers and topics are:
*Robin Robison (Quaker Peace & Social Witness www.quaker.org.uk)
"The IMF and World Bank: effects of water privitization in Nicaragua"
*Lucy Pearce (World Development Movement www.wdm.org.uk)
“Dirty Aid, Dirty Water: How Britain’s development aid is being siphoned off for big business and what you can do to stop it!”
*Mark Ladbroke (Unison www.unison.org.uk)
“A union perspective on water privatization”
Chair: Dr Bronwyn Morgan (www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/research/morgan.html)
University of Oxford researcher on access to water, social protest and global citizenship
At: Oxford Town Hall, 7:30pm-9:30pm, Wednesday 13th April 2005
Sponsored by:
Oxford Trade Justice Coalition (contact via local WDM Group on
ktam2uk@yahoo.co.uk) and the Oxford-Leon Association (www.oxfordleon.org/)
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Further information:
The Global Week of Action is targeting:
*Governments of the North and South. Their role in pushing free trade and privatisation on the poor in the following arenas.
*The World Trade Organisation, calling for an alternative system, one that has the needs of the poorest, rather than having free trade at its heart.
*The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, calling on them to stop forcing free trade and privatisation on the poor through ‘advice’ and conditions attached to new loans and debt repayments.
*Regional and bilateral trade agreements – such as the Free trade area of the Americas and the Cotonou agreement. For an end to agreements that put profits before people.
*Transnational corporations and their role in pushing free trade and privatisation on the poor.
To find out more go to: www.april2005.org/