Tell the World Bank to stop promoting water privatization

Last month, U.S. Congresswoman Gwen Moore (Democrat from Wisconsin) released a hard-hitting letter condemning the World Bank's water practices. Representative Moore plays a powerful role on the U.S. congressional committee with oversight of the World Bank and has significant influence over U.S. funding to the World Bank. In the letter, Rep. Moore calls for an immediate halt to all funding and promotion of water privatization, including water PPPs.

Representative Moore’s letter puts tremendous pressure on the Bank, which has been magnified by media coverage in at least 14 countries, with this Associated Press article alone reaching more than 400 million people. Over the last few weeks, the World Bank has been scrambling to respond to Rep. Moore, issuing a media statement and an initial response which attempts to deny the World Bank’s role in promoting water privatization. The World Bank is trying to weaken Rep. Moore’s resolve and minimize the problem.

We need to ramp up pressure on the World Bank by showing that there is a global movement behind the demand to stop funding and promoting water privatization, under any name.

Re-tweet our tweet to the World Bank asking them to end all support for water privatization:

Water #privatization has failed time and time again. Stop promoting #PPPs @WBG_PPP @WorldBankWater https://t.co/v3qZy5d0L1

— PSI (@PSIglobalunion) June 16, 2016

Send a letter to the World Bank Executive Director representing your country asking that the World Bank end all support for water privatization, and address the concerns expressed in Moore’s letter in a transparent and inclusive manner.

This will ensure that government representatives from multiple countries are raising these concerns to the World Bank President and staff, from the highest level of Bank governance.

Use the template letter which you can adapt to send your own message to your World Bank Executive Director. There is one section where you can add something more about your experience with PPPs (supported by the World Bank or not) or public water/remunicipalization successes. This is optional, but it would be good to have a specific paragraph to show the wealth of experience from so many countries.

The text of the letter is attached as well as a list of the Executive Director by country. All you need to do is:

• Download the Word template

• Find the corresponding name and email of the Executive Director for your country

• copy the letter attached onto your own letterhead

• add in some information about PPPs in your country (or delete that sentence)

• sign as you would normally

• email to the World Bank Executive Director and their Alternate, with cc. to: the World Bank President at [email protected] and [email protected]. Please also cc: [email protected]; [email protected], [email protected]