Organization: Agua, Rios, y Pueblos (Water, Rivers and People)

The Cutzamala system pumps 480 million cubic meters down 160 km of pipe to Mexico City while smaller communities did not have safe water. As mothers, the Mazahuas demanded and fought for the right to water for their communities – they won because they were empowered to demand their human right.

The water crisis in the world is a consequence of the convergence of three critical failures: the poverty and inequality crisis, the unsustainability crisis of our aquatic ecosystems, and the governance crisis of public services against privatization pressures.

Today new strategies of saving, efficiency, and conservation prevail. Today, the modernization of irrigation and urban networks, together with the application of laws and technologies that impede contamination and overexploitation of rivers and aquifers, are imposed with the most advanced of water management policies.

The fundamental challenge is not so much technology as it is governance. The battle against privatization of public water services and against corruption is giving birth to new models of participative public management under social control. At the same time, this is also opening a path to the recognition of access to drinking water as a human right.

Fortunately, faced with the grave problems that derive from the global water crisis, citizen movements are giving hope to the perspective of the other world order, which is possible, without a doubt, simply because it is necessary.

Keywords: access to water, gender and water, sustainable development.
Location: Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean

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