Despite significant opposition from the government of Indonesia and the World Water Council, the organizers of the World Water Forum, the 1st People’s Water Forum came to a successful conclusion in Bali, Indonesia.
The Corporate Capture of Water Governance at the World Water Forum
The World Water Council and the government of Indonesia hosted the 10th World Water Forum (WWF) in Bali from May 18th to 24th, 2024. Marketed as a multi-stakeholder water governance platform, the WWF is dominated by Northern states, public and private financial institutions and large corporations that seek to promote privatisation as a solution to the underfunding of the water sector by governments around the world.
Academic and movement research and the experiences of frontline communities and water defenders overwhelmingly indicate that restructuring water services and resources to facilitate the participation of private corporations and finance only exacerbates problems of declining access and ecosystem destruction. Privatization in all its forms increases water inequalities, with the burden ultimately borne by households and public budgets. Meanwhile, private industry and finance reap the rewards, gaining easier access to water resources much to the detriment of those who rely upon them to survive. Despite the demonstrated risks this agenda entails, the WWF continues to provide a platform for the world’s richest and mightiest water profiteers while shutting out the voices of the exploited and marginalized who go on bearing the brunt of the consequences.
The corporate capture of water was on full display at 10th WWF Bali.1 Almost 90% of ‘Finance’ themed sessions to the WWF explicitly or implicitly supported blended finance—using public money to ‘leverage’ private finance—to fund crucial investments in water and sanitation. This is even though these forms of so-called innovative finance have failed to raise significant amounts of funding over the last decade and essentially use public money to subsidize private profits at the expense of the most vulnerable. Indeed, women, disproportionately responsible for ensuring access to water for households and caring for water resources, were largely absent from the WWF program. Only about 10% of more than 100 thematic sessions had any mention of women or gender and only a handful substantively addressed the overwhelming burden of gendered water labour.
More broadly, a conservative analysis identifies the presence of private corporations or their representatives as organizers or participants in roughly 50% of thematic sessions at the WWF. The situation is more dire when it comes to High Level Panels (HLPs) where nearly 75% of all sessions supported solutions to water crises that prioritize the private sector or private finance with nearly 2/3 explicitly doing so. There was only one specific mention of water inequalities amongst HLPs, but the session promoted the same private sector solutions in response. None of the HLPs were informed by a rights-based approach or included the voices of frontline communities or critical movements. Rather, the civil society role was filled by large, explicitly pro-private sector and private finance International NGOs such as the Nature Conservancy or featured the token participation of other ‘marginalized groups’.
The People’s Water Forum 2024 Bali
Meanwhile, across town, away from the shiny hotels and luxury resorts, the PWF 2024 Bali was to take place from May 21st to 23rd with a series of pre- and post-event activities scheduled over the course of the week. As momentum built towards the event, however, the Indonesian authorities, including various branches of law enforcement, immigration and intelligence, attempted to disrupt PWF organizing and intimidate local and international organizers and participants, ostensibly in an effort to prevent critical voices from Indonesia and around the world from gathering.
Visa delays and denials, lengthy questioning at border control and immigration, monitoring of attendees and questioning of local organizers by authorities at their homes escalated to the cancellation of venue reservations, targeting of organizer communications and verbal and physical intimidation and violence directed at PWF organizers and participants. The PWF’s opening press conference on Monday, May 20th, held at a hotel in Denpasar, the third alternative PWF venue, was violently disrupted by dozens of masked men with some 50 Indonesian water defenders then blockaded inside the hotel by a combination of police and reactionary nationalist groups associated with the state.
The PWF immediately organized efforts to draw attention to these repressive measures in the local and international press and mobilized our networks to take action. On Tuesday, May 21st, a small PWF contingent, including BPP representatives and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, went to the hotel where our partners were blockaded to observe the situation and draw attention to human rights violations but were physically prevented from gaining entry and escorted from the property.
A local and international uproar ensued, with numerous organizations issuing solidarity statements, including inside the official forum where the PWF and the two-day-long siege of our partners became the issue. With enormous pressure on the government to change course and resolve the incident, the forces blockading the hotel withdrew on the evening of Wednesday, May 22nd. As momentum shifted in the PWF’s favour, we regrouped to resume our program that same evening and on Thursday, May 23rd were finally able to (re)unite with our Indonesian partners, holding a full day of online and hybrid sessions to close the official PWF 2024 Bali program.
Water Defenders vs Water Imperialism
While these measures are extraordinary, they are connected to a longer history of attempts to suppress democratic dissent and critical organizing in opposition to the WWF, including those in Turkey in 2009 and Brazil in 2018. This collusion in Indonesia was publicly confirmed in a press conference on May 24th with Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) Minister Basuki Hadimuljono and the President of the WWC Loïc Fauchon. In his comments, the Minister plainly told the press that he had consulted Fauchon on whether or not to admit PWF participants into the country and they had strategized together, deciding to let us in but to closely monitor our activities such that we did not incite local residents. While it is surprising that a state minister would publicly admit to consulting a representative of what amounts to a private sector actor on individual matters of immigration and policing the voices of national and international attendees of a legitimate conference—deeply undemocratic actions which Fauchon made no attempt to address or downplay—the level of corporate capture and collusion they evidence are deeply troubling.
Equally concerning, the minister’s framing reproduces a dangerous narrative regarding foreign interference frequently mobilized by both reactionary right wing and liberal governments around the world over the last decade. These narratives deny the democratic agency of residents and critical civil society movements seeking more just and equitable futures while simultaneously normalizing the closure of spaces of dissent—in this case, going so far as to deny the right to expression and assembly. Indeed, as a solidarity letter published by academics notes, in addition to limiting fundamental democratic rights, the cancellation of the PWF reservation at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Denpasar, the initial venue for the gathering, was an assault on academic freedom.
The Struggle for Water Justice Continues!
Following the closing ceremonies of the PWF 2024 Bali, which included a webinar focusing on water justice struggles, corporate capture and the closure of spaces of democratic dissent, and a celebration of Indonesian and Balinese resistance, music and art, the PWF met to reflect on these extraordinary events. We planned next steps and discussed strategies to ensure the continued safety of Indonesian and other water defenders organizing in undemocratic and high-risk contexts, while building on the momentum generated over the course of the week and preceding weeks and months.
After taking time to consult with frontline communities, water defenders and movements in our network, in the recently released Bali Declaration, the PWF re-affirms its critique that the corporate capture of global water governance and its increasingly explicit anti-democratic nature presents a grave threat to water justice. Amidst the growing global water crisis, exacerbated by all forms of privatization and financialization, our diverse and geographically disparate yet common struggles for water justice are more necessary than ever.
1 The WWF programme and session abstracts are available on the 10th World Water Forum website: https://worldwaterforum.org/