Time to Organize for World Water Day!

By Nancy Price
Co-chair, Earth Democracy Committee

February 2021

Time to organize for World Water Day March 22 on the theme “valuing water,” focused on pricing and also on the social, environmental, and cultural “value” of water. Join the global conversation about what water means to you.

Join the Conversation

• We want to hear from you!
• Tell us what water means to you.
• Share your views on social media.
• Tag your post with #Water2me.
• Your voice will help shape the World Water Day 2021 campaign and will inform a report about the importance of water.

Check out ongoing discussions

Earth Democracy invites you – our members and branches – to join in this global World Water Day conversation about what water means to you.

The organizers of World Water Day want to:

• Learn and share WHAT IS BEING DONE by people all over the world, and by you and your community, to protect water. They want to hear your stories, thoughts and feelings about water and will create a collective record of  Audio Recordings from the Field. These are stories presented by radio journalists, both professional and amateur, of community members who are interviewed and their voices aired through community radio with listeners responding through text messages and calls into the station if possible. 

• Go to https://www.worldwaterday.org click on the “Learn,” “Share,” “Act” sections for information, and scroll down for information, a ToolKit (soon to be posted), and Social Media materials. 

What WILPF Members and Branches Can Do

Here’s one WILPF example of what’s being done: Californians will remember that nearly all of our CA Tour March 7-22, 2020 – “Exposing the Pentagon: Hidden Polluter of Water” events were cancelled because of COVID-19, including our Forum for Sunday which was going to be held March 22, 2020, World Water Day, in San Francisco. We’re now going back to the radio stations that interviewed Pat Elder last spring so he can give an update, and February 24, he’ll be on Jean Hays’ WILPF “Stir It Up” community radio program in Fresno.

You – our members and branches might:  

• Organize a Zoom or group phone call to share together - How is water important to your home and family life, your livelihood, your religious and cultural practices and spaces, your personal and community wellbeing, and your local environment?  
• Talk about how water is under threat from a growing population, increasing demand of agriculture and industry, the worsening impacts of climate change and ever-increasing contamination.

Earth Democracy’s Human Right to Water Project will post questions to discuss and materials for World Water Day. For example, here are some questions that we would ask when “valuing water”:  

1. How do we calculate the value of water? Is it is a public good, a public commons to be share equitably and protected for present and future generations, or is water just a commodity to invest in for profit? 
   On December 18, 2020, Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva wrote decrying the move by CME Group, the largest financial derivatives exchange company, that on December 7, 2020 launched the world’s first futures market in water so financiers and investors can profit from the planet’s water crisis. They wrote: “We deplore this development and urge people and governments everywhere to reject it…If water is put on the open market like oil and gas, it will lead inevitably to rising water prices in a world desperately in need of water for life.”
    
2. What is happening in your community to enforce that Water is a Human Right? Today, with COVID-19 still spreading rampantly, water is even more precious because good attention to handwashing helps to control infection as described in this article: 'The Most Basic Form of PPE': 1.6 Million Households Face Water Shutoffs. In California alone, 1.6 million poor and fixed income households cannot pay their water bills now because of job loss, taking in additional family members, or deaths of the main income provider, and so these households are in danger of losing their fundamental human right – access to water for personal and household use. Furthermore, local municipal water systems that are losing revenue from unpaid water bills risk going under and being bought up by private, for-profit water corporations. Already a a large coalition is calling on Biden to impose a national moratorium on water shutoffs. What is the situation in your town, city, or state? 

If you have questions that you’d like to share with our Earth Democracy community, please email co-chairs Nancy Price and Randa Solick at earthdemocracy(@)wilpfus.org and we’ll incorporate them into our early March World Water Day Action Alert.