Maude Barlow, one of Canada's most outspoken activists against the privatization of water systems and head of the Council of Canadians, has been named senior adviser on water issues to the UN.
The appointment, announced Monday, is an indication that the world body wants to take a more active role in the thorny issue of whether access to water should be considered a basic human right, along side other rights, such as freedom of assembly and speech.
Ms. Barlow becomes the first person to hold the position of water policy expert, which was made by UN general assembly president Miguel d'Escoto.
Mr. d'Escoto has been trying to raise the profile of the UN on a number of issues, and has also recently named a panel to investigate solutions to the on-going world financial crisis, headed by economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
Ms. Barlow said her selection was a surprise, and came after she had been personally urged to take on the job by Mr. d'Escoto. “It came right out of the blue,” Ms. Barlow said. “It's a great honour.”
As part of her appointment, she insisted that the position not be paid a salary. She will continue to as national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, a nationalist organization based in Ottawa, the role for which she is best known, and live in Canada, although she expects to be doing more travelling to New York.
Part of her job will be to try to set up a new convention on water rights that, she says, would “establish that water is a right and that nobody in the world should be denied water because they can't pay for it and right now, if you can't pay for it you die in many, many countries.”
The world body is expected to issue a plan for how it will deal with water issues on Dec. 10, the 60th anniversary of the UN's signature document, the universal declaration of human rights.
Ms. Barlow said the development of water policy in poorer countries is often dominated by lending institutions like the World Bank, and private sector companies, which don't allow for much influence by ordinary citizens.
“Flawed as it may be, the UN is the only body in the world that potentially has the capacity to speak for the world's citizens and government, as opposed to the power centres at the other institutions like the [World Trade Organization], the World Bank, and the [International Monetary Fund],” she said.
