Growing Influence of Water Corporations at the UN

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Widespread lobbying of the United Nations

Food & Water Watch and 138 other groups around the world have sent a letter to the UN Missions opposing the “the increasingly widespread lobbying of the United Nations by transnational water corporations,” according to a news article by AFP.

A new report prepared for the Council of Canadians, A Review of Private Sector Influence on Water Policies and Programmes at the United Nations, scrutinizes the growing corporate influence over the international body.

The report author Julie Larsen writes:

“For-profit utilities, bottled water companies, water industry associations and companies investing in private water services are all exerting strong influence on the UN agencies and policies that affect billions around the world. Many of us have long expressed concern that this corporate influence has steered the UN to more market-oriented solutions to the global water crisis and have opposed UN agencies being drawn into deeper involvement with the World Water Council, a corporate-serving body that often seems to speak for governments in its policy iterations, but really represents the interests of the private sector.”

For more information, see the Council of Canadians blog.

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