PBI-Honduras accompanies ARCAH at mobilization against water privatization at World Bank in Tegucigalpa

On September 14, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“In the National Coalition of Organizations in Defense of Water in Honduras, they deliver a document expressing concern about ‘the World Bank’s participation in the water decentralization-privatization process.’”

On Facebook, PBI-Honduras also noted:

“Yesterday we accompanied ARCAH [the Alternative for Community and Environmental Reclamation of Honduras] and other organizations that look after the defense of the right to water, to a mobilization outside the offices of the World Bank in Tegucigalpa.

The organizations, united in the National Coalition of Water Defense Organizations in Honduras, delivered a document in which they express concern over “the participation of the World Bank in the process of decentralization of water, i.e., its privatization, which implies the violation of the right to water.

In the points mentioned in the letter, there is a request for meeting so that organizations can present to the World Bank the various concerns and delve into the issue of the right to water in Honduras.”

On September 8, Criterio.hn reported:

“At least 92 of Honduras’ 298 municipalities have reportedly privatized drinking water services through a scheme in which banks in the national financial system and transnational corporations have become the main administrative managers.

This was denounced by the Alternative of Community and Environmental Claim (ARCAH), an environmental platform opposed to the expansion of the extractive model of natural resources in Honduras.”

They have stated: “ARCAH denounces again the process of privatization of water in Honduras, we strongly emphasize that water is a sacred element that, putting its future in the hands of the private sector, is nothing more than a hard blow to the peoples, which perpetuates the extractivist, mercantile and capital-accumulating gaze with which Banco Ficohsa and other financial institutions involved see the common goods of nature.”

Peace Brigades International has also highlighted complaints about the privatization of drinking water, contamination and depletion of water sources as a result of extractive projects in Tolupán territory, such as Las Vegas de Tepemechín and Locomapa, and in protected areas, such as Guapinol and Sierra de Agalta. It is urgent to guarantee the protection of communities and organizations that defend the right to water.