The Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/ FoEN, organised a Water Summit with the theme: Connecting Local Outrage to Global Resistance of Corporate Control of Water on 11-12 August 2015. The summit was organised in partnership with Corporate Accountability International, the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Services Employees, AUPCTRE, Public Services International, PSI, Transnational Institute, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt & Development, and Freedom from Debt Coalition.

Participants were drawn from local, national and international partners in Ghana, Belgium, the Philippines and the United States, representing a growing global movement committed to resisting corporate control of water and securing water as a human right. Solidarity messages were received from notable civil society actors and policy stakeholders in Nigeria. They include Joe Odumakin, chairperson of Women Arise for Change Initiative; Wale Okediran and Uche Onyeagucha, former parliamentarians; Auwal Rafsanjani, executive director, Civil Society Legislative Centre, CISLAC; Greg Akili, project coordinator, Corporate Accountability International, CAI; Priscilla Achakpa, executive director of Women Environmental Programme; Sani Baba of Public Service International, PSI, and Shayda Naficy of Corporate Accountability International.

Key on the agenda was the interrogation of water privatization in all its ramifications and implication on communities and peoples; solidarity between civil society groups, labour unions, activists, policy makers and the media around public-public partnerships as a strong alternative to privatization in the water sector; and exploring of policy options to strengthen democratic control of water. It also reassessed and denounced the misleading marketing myth of Public-Private Partnerships, PPP, as just another form of water privatization promoted by the World Bank and other financial institutions.

The summit resolved that that privatization under any guise including PPP is not a solution to lack of access to water; that a bill to guarantee access to water as a human right should be sponsored at the Lagos State House of Assembly and at national levels to forestall plans to use Lagos and other Nigerian cities as the laboratory for water privatisation in Nigeria and across the African Region. It was also agreed that there is the need to link the governance issues at the domestic front and across Africa with the robust global movement that is resisting privatization of water, and that a growing global trend of reclaiming and building strong public water systems – including through remunicipalisation – offers opportunities to build local democratic governance of water sources and infrastructure. It said that privatization is a justification or excuse for introducing market forces that cannot guarantee rights to water and that the failure of the World Bank’s privatization of the water system in Manila, Philippines, which has been marketed to government officials across Africa, is a cautionary example of the dire consequences that would face Lagos if it pursued the PPP model.

Other issues agreed upon include, that women and vulnerable groups should be accorded priority in plans to guarantee access to water; the linkage between water access and the environment and sanitation is important and therefore should be at the front burner of campaigns against the privatisation of water; and local communities at the grassroots level, and in particular Community Development Associations, CDAs, must be fully integrated into campaigns on (the human right to water). Similarly, it was agreed that the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, should be used to demand information on funds granted for public water projects over the last three decades; the need for stakeholders to assert their identities as ‘citizens,’ rather than accept being designated as ‘consumers’ through privatization and commodification; an Africa Coalition Against Water Privatisation has been established as a network of civil society and development experts carrying out targeted actions towards promoting the human right to water. This initiative will address the challenges of governance, human rights and corruption in the water sector across the African continent.

An African Women Water Network has been established, working in coordination with the Africa Coalition Against Water Privatisation; the Summit stands in solidarity with the Water Citizens Network of Ghana in saying NO to prepaid water meters; the monthly surcharge on electricity tariff stopped by the Nigerian Senate should also be extended to the water sector; citizen engagement processes that are funded and supported by international financial institutions, that promote PPP privatization models as the presumed goal and/or neglect input from independent citizen advocates, are rejected, and a probe will be launched of all loans and funding for the existing water system and infrastructure managed by the Lagos State Water Corporation, LSWC.