Kathmandu, March 28:

Majority of the participants at the fourth World Water Forum (WWF) in Mexico City from March 16 to 22 expressed their opposition to the privatisation of water resources, Nepali participants in the meet said after returning to Nepal.

Around 200 participants from 15 to 20 countries organised a protest programme against the official WWF agenda that concentrated on privatisation and big dams.

“We held a protest programme against privatisation. Our aim was to get those in authority to hear our voice loud and clear,” said Pravin Man Singh, representative of Water and Energy Federation (WAFED) today.

The protestors boycotted the official session and held a three-day parallel session from March 19 to 22, Singh said.

The protestors highlighted the cases of Bolivia and Philippines, where people have had to suffer a lot due to privatisation schemes and the concerned governments have had to withdraw their scheduled programmes due to stern protests from the civil society.

“Instead, we proposed that the local institutions be given the rights and responsibility for management of water distribution,” he said. The French representative stressed on the need to hand over water management to municipal authorities, he added.

Singh, presenting a paper on Nepal, said Nepal should exploit local resources and technologies rather than wait for big international donors to do the job as the latter have enough problems of their own. The participants of WWF are pushing for better public management through cooperation between governmental agencies, non-governmental organisations and local communities.

Dr Roshan Raj Shrestha, chief technical advisor to UN-HABITAT, said that instead of privatising water distribution services, the meet participants stressed the need of local action.

The WWF is organised by the World Water Council, which came into existence in the mid-1990s with the help of representatives from the fields of business, academics, science and the civil society.