Colombia’s Movement for Water Democracy and Constitutional Reform

8/14/2019 Colombias Movement for Water Democracy and Constitutional Reform

1/4

Colombias Movement for Water Democracy

and Constitutional Reform

WATER

BackgroundIn 2006, environmental groups and public sector workersin Colombia simultaneously expressed a demand that thehuman right to water be included in the countrys consti-tution. By 2007, progressive forces had united to launch

the formal process of constitutional reform. According tothe law, 1.5 million signatures must be gathered to bringa constitutional referendum before Congress. The mea-sure is subject to two debates in the House and two in theSenate, after which it goes before a federal court judgefor review pending approval by the president. Followingthis process, the measure comes to a popular vote. Forthe vote to be valid, a full quarter of the population 7million people must vote. A winning vote is 50 percentplus one.

The popular initiative came in response to deteriorat-ing access to safe water combined with a wave of failed

water privatization projects that had swept the watersector over the previous decade. Like many financiallyconstrained developing countries, the government ofColombia had long neglected its water and sanitationinfrastructure and services. A 2009 survey conducted

by theDefensora del Pueblo, the governments humanrights agency, found that at least 9 million Colombianslack reliable access to safe drinking water due to poor in-frastructure and 20 million more are at high risk of going

without due to scarcity. The private sector has also failedto provide needed services, despite its boasts of efficiencyand improved service. Water and human rights advocates

in Colombia see democratic reform, citizen participationand increased public investment as the solution to decay-ing water infrastructure and inadequate water services.

In February 2007, a diverse popular coalition cametogether, calling itself the National Committee for the De-fense of Water and Life (CNDAV in its Spanish acronym),after the movement that ejected Bechtel Corporationfrom Bolivia in 2000. CNDAV drafted a five-point reformproposal and mobilized to collect signatures across the

Water activists in Colombia are pushing a popular initiative to add explicitprotection for the human right to water to the nations constitution. Theinitiative follows similar reform efforts that succeeded in Uruguay in 2004, Ecuadorin 2008 and Bolivia in 2009. These constitutional reforms demonstrate the closeparallels between the movement for access to safe and sufficient water and themovement for democracy that is sweeping the Americas. After three years ofpopular mobilization to build support, the Colombian reform measure is now up fordebate before the nations congress.

Marching in the streets for the right to water.


2/4

country. From an initial 70 organizational members, CN-DAVs membership grew 17-fold by early 2008 to 1,200member groups.

Between 2007 and 2008, CNDAV mobilized massivepopular support to gather signatures and educate thepublic about water issues. CNDAV employed all the tradi-tional tactics of gathering signatures at shopping centers,concerts and other public venues. It also broadened its

effort and reached out to underserved communities, jour-neying by boat down Colombias major rivers, includingthe Cauca, the Magdalena and the Amazon, to reach com-munities isolated from most national political processes.Since these remote communities are gravely affected bythe public health problems associated with lack of accessto safe water, the support was overwhelming.

In October 2008, the coalition delivered over 2 millionsignatures, forcing Congress to address the issue. Ecofon-do, one of Food & Water Watchs partner groups and theinstitutional host for CNDAV, buoyantly announced:

Walking across an enormous blue fabric like a river,which minutes before had been carried jubilantlythrough the streets, a crowd of children deliveredpackages of signatures to the delegates of the Con-gress. The scene was set: everything blue like water,green like the mountains, white like the sky; amidsttears, hugs, emotional words, song and dance, wedelivered 294 packages containing over two millionsignatures; but more than signatures, these packagescontained the hope of millions of Colombians whohave taken this initiative as their own.

The Original Five Points of Reform

1. The state should guarantee the protection ofwater in all of its manifestations as essential forthe life of all species and for present and futuregenerations. Water is a common good and apublic trust.

2. Access to potable water is a fundamental rightThe state has the obligation to supply sufcientpotable water to everyone without discriminationand with consideration for gender equity. Thestate should guarantee a minimum free lifelinesupply.

3. All waters, in all of their forms and states,

including runoff channels, riverbeds and coastalareas, are national goods for public use. Therewill be respect for a zone of protection around

rivers, lakes and wetlands. Waters that runoff or are found in indigenous territories orin the collective territories of Afro-Colombiancommunities are to be considered part of those

territories. The cultural value of water as a sacredelement in the cosmovision of these ethnic groupwill be guaranteed.

4. Ecosystems essential to the hydrological cycleshould enjoy special protection on the part ofthe state, guaranteeing the function of this cycle

without threatening the rights of communitiesthat traditionally inhabit these areas, andallowing access to abundant clean water by allliving beings.

5. Water and sewerage services will be

offered directly by the state or by organizedcommunity groups. State or community entitiesestablished for this purpose will function on anot-for-prot basis and will guarantee citizenparticipation, social control and transparency in

the management of nancial resources and otheraspects of operation.

Organized community groups, without motivefor prot, will base these services in self-management in which all members agree to theform of economic development necessary for thefunctioning. These community groups will receivethe support of the state to guarantee coverage

and potability of the water they deliver.Delivering signatures to Congress: the hope of millions.


3/4

Challenges to the ReformAfter the signatures were delivered to Congress, allies ofPresident lvaro Uribe nearly derailed the reform effort

by proposing sweeping changes to the text. The proposedrevisions would have gutted the basic goal of reform byeliminating reference to the human right to water andthe recognition of water as a common good for publicuse. The Uribe-backed proposal also slashed the specialprotections for ecosystems and removed the hurdles to

water and sewer privatization. Further, the proposedmodifications attempted to add a provision enshrining

water as a private good in the constitution by adding thephrase waters that are born and die in the same prop-erty are private. The revised document also reduced theproposed minimum lifeline supply of water designed toprovide every Colombian with an ample and affordablesupply of water by falsely suggesting that lifeline services

were oriented strictly toward the poor, and maintainingthat this service would be provided through the privatemanagement of public utilities.

Ecofondo quickly mobilized to prevent the constitutionalreform from being distorted. On May 21, 2009, Eco-fondos Director, Rafael Colmenares, delivered a letter to

Congress, signed by dozens of international supporters,expressing concern over the proposed changes. Follow-ing this intervention, on May 26, Congress voted 66 to26 to sustain the original text of the reform, allowing it tomove to debate in congressional commission and on thefloor of the House.

About More Than WaterColombias initiative, like the ones in Uruguay, Boliviaand Ecuador, would act as a bulwark against privatiza-tion. The passage of the Uruguayan referendum in 2004marked a landmark victory for public water manage-

ment; a victory in Colombia promises to be equallyimportant. Not only do these victories prevent calamitous

water privatization schemes, they also widen the scopeof human rights to address not only physical brutalityand abuse, but to recognize that when people are deniedaccess to lifes essential resources like water, they aredenied life itself.

Colombia is not a country with a strong democratic tradi-tion. The country has been mired in a long, bloody civilconflict and extreme economic and political inequality.Bubbling tensions between rich and poor, landowners

and landless, and the countrys large indigenous popula-tion, its Afro-Colombian population, and its majority La-dino (Spanish-descended) population present challengesto both equity and democracy.

Although Colombias economic and political elites havea firm grip on the country, there is at the same time astrong tradition of popular grassroots mobilization. Adriving force behind the movement for constitutionalreform, for example, are consumer groups organized intoneighborhood-based chapters to ensure adequate deliv-ery of public services. Similarly, the national indigenousmovement, known as la minga indigena, is profoundly

devoted to reviving ancestral traditions of direct democ-racy. Manual Rozental and Vilma Almendra, speaking forthe indigenous movement, argued: Democracy, for us,is when power resides in the social fabric and not in theideas of one person or one institution. Without collectiveaction, there is no democracy.

In this sense, the constitutional reform movement isabout more than water; it is about collective rights,gender equity and native sovereignty. In rural areas ofthe developing world, women and girls walk an averageof six kilometers a day to collect water and carry it, at

Mobilizing for the right to water on the water.


4/4

eight pounds per gallon, from the source to the home. Ifthis water is unsafe which it quite often is it must betreated or it will sicken entire families. By building theright to safe water into national legislation, the govern-ment takes responsibility for addressing this critical pub-lic health issue and reducing the burden of excess laborand ill health that falls most heavily on women.

Water reform also reinforces the indigenous peoples

value of collective ownership and community-based solu-tions. The constitutional reform will codify these idealsby establishing water as a public trust. Corporate-drivenglobalization, including water privatization, entrenchesprivate investor rights at the expense of collective rightsand collective property traditionally enjoyed by manynative peoples. Community-based water managementpractices that go back centuries can be dismantled byprivate interests seeking to own what many indigenouspeople consider un-ownable the water, forests andecosystems where they live. Colombias water referendumpromotes a vision of water that maintains it not simplyas a resource, but as a part of what many native groups

refer to as territory.

ConclusionCNDAV and the other organizers in Colombia recognizethat passing the water referendum is the first step in along process towards water democracy but it is an im-portant step for three key reasons. First, it marks an im-portant tactical shift, from protesting water privatizationto promoting just and humane water policies. Second, themovement sidesteps Colombias historical ethnic and eco-nomic polarization and brings together a broad constitu-ency. This inclusiveness offers a way out of the cycle of

political violence that has marred narrower movements,while still recognizing that social change must accountfor structural inequities and overcome historical abusesof power. Third, the reform process engages popularparticipation, empowering millions of disenfranchisedColombians. The successful mobilization has generated

tangible benefits before the vote on the referendum haseven been cast.

Javier Marquez, director ofPenca de Sabila, one of theNGOs that makes up the National Committee for theDefense of Water and Life, said:

The most important aspect of this process is theconjoining of forces from different sectors to unitein a single platform. Weve shown that we can builda united front linking water with the struggle for hu-man rights, for gender equity, for native territoriesand for economic and environmental justice.

SourcesMuch of the material in this briefing paper is based oninterviews conducted with Rafael Colmenares Faccini andJuan Mira, Executive Director and Campaign Directorfor EcoFondo, the Colombian organization that housesCNDAV, between May 21 and June 21, 2009; an inter-

view with Javier Marquez, Director of Penca de Sabila,conducted on May 20, 2009; and an interview withManual Rozental and Vilma Almendra conducted on May

21, 2009. Additional information was adapted from LosSentidos del Referendo en Defensa del Agua,by RafaelColmenares Faccini, published inBoletin Ecofondo,No. 29, and from the video, Segundo Foro Nacional y

Internacional Agua y Medio Ambiente , produced byEcoFondo.

For more information:

web: www.foodandwaterwatch.orgemail: [email protected]: (202) 683-2500 (DC) (415) 293-9900 (CA)

Copyright June 2009 Food & Water Watch

Employing music, art and theater to mobilize support.

Rafael Colmenares, director of Ecofondo, speaking before

Colombian Congress.

Documents

Colombia’s Movement for Water Democracy and Constitutional Reform