Cleanwaterforum : A forum to discuss how to achieve universal access to safe, physically accessible, sufficient and affordable, clean water.

We set up this blog to discuss issues surrounding universal access to safe, physically accessible, sufficient and affordable clean water. These issues include, but are not limited to: 1) whether access to clean water should be enshrined as a fundamental human right; 2) how to respond to the increasingly prevalent treatment of water as a commodity rather than a public good (corporate social responsibility and water); 3) clean water as global health issue; 4) clean water as a poverty issue; 5) clean water as a global security issue; 6) clean water as a gender issue.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Biofuels exacerbating water crisis - solutions? Competitive pricing v. transferable water rights

An oped piece by the chairman of multinational Nestlé.

"We also need to encourage the responsible use of water. And the only way to do that is to introduce competitive pricing. Water is being wasted and misused because few people are even aware of its worth. Today, 94% of available water is used by agriculture – and because there are no cost consequences for the farmer, almost all of that water is underused or misused."

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A RESPONSE by John Briscoe, Country Director for Brazil, World Bank

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121417640158095337.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

"There is only one way of getting users to consider opportunity costs and that is to give users well-specified, transferable water rights."
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