One of the sleaziest venture capital firms to enter the emerging world of “water markets” is Aqua International. The objective of Aqua International, by its own description, is to generate long-term capital appreciation through equity investment in private water companies or those in the process of being privatized. The firm focuses on water in emerging and developing markets and will target “leveraged annual internal rates of return in the region of 25% compounded annually.” This will certainly make shareholders happy, but is likely to contribute to growing public health crises as water becomes a privatized commodity subject to market prices that ensure shareholders a hefty profit, but leave billions without access.
Currently, more than a billion people lack access to clean and affordable water and 2.4 billion lack sanitation services. More than 5 million people, mostly children, die each year from common, preventable water-borne diseases. Last October, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a government agency, rewarded Aqua International's entrepreneurial exploitation of growing water scarcity by granting the venture capital firm $70 million of U.S. taxpayer money, stating that the investments of Aqua International could address conditions of severe water stress in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. This is highly unlikely given shareholder requirements for 25% rates of return!
In addition, “risk mitigation” investment requirements include “indexing company revenue streams to dollar foreign exchange”, which in plain English means massive increases in water prices for consumers in the developing world. This will undoubtably exacerbate water stress in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
It is time to openly condemn profit-hungry water speculators. Water is a natural resource that should remain in the public domain. It is not a commodity to be auctioned off as the private property of multinational corporations. Nor should U.S. agencies be rewarding this entrepreneurial activity with grants of taxpayer money. One more sad footnote to the Aqua International tragedy is that its CEO, William Reilly, gains some of his credibility from his previous job as president of the World Wildlife Fund from 1985-1989 and as the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1989-1993.
Sara Grusky
Water for All Campaign
Public Citizen
Website: http://www.wateractivist.org
“Most of our populace and all of our leaders are participating in a mass hallucinatory fantasy in which the megatons of waste we dump in our rivers and bays are not poisoning the water, the hydrocarbons we pump into the air are not changing the climate, overfishing is not depleting the oceans, fossil fuels will never run out, wars that kill masses of civilians are an appropriate way to keep our hands on what's left, we are not desperately overdrawn at the environmental bank and really, the kids are all right.”
Excerpt from Barbara Kingsolver
“The Good Farmer”
http://www.kingsolver.com/
Please also see:
Drowning In An Ocean Of Plastic
http://www.rense.com/general53/plastic.htm
Currently, more than a billion people lack access to clean and affordable water and 2.4 billion lack sanitation services. More than 5 million people, mostly children, die each year from common, preventable water-borne diseases. Last October, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a government agency, rewarded Aqua International's entrepreneurial exploitation of growing water scarcity by granting the venture capital firm $70 million of U.S. taxpayer money, stating that the investments of Aqua International could address conditions of severe water stress in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. This is highly unlikely given shareholder requirements for 25% rates of return!
In addition, “risk mitigation” investment requirements include “indexing company revenue streams to dollar foreign exchange”, which in plain English means massive increases in water prices for consumers in the developing world. This will undoubtably exacerbate water stress in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
It is time to openly condemn profit-hungry water speculators. Water is a natural resource that should remain in the public domain. It is not a commodity to be auctioned off as the private property of multinational corporations. Nor should U.S. agencies be rewarding this entrepreneurial activity with grants of taxpayer money. One more sad footnote to the Aqua International tragedy is that its CEO, William Reilly, gains some of his credibility from his previous job as president of the World Wildlife Fund from 1985-1989 and as the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1989-1993.
Sara Grusky
Water for All Campaign
Public Citizen
Website: http://www.wateractivist.org
“Most of our populace and all of our leaders are participating in a mass hallucinatory fantasy in which the megatons of waste we dump in our rivers and bays are not poisoning the water, the hydrocarbons we pump into the air are not changing the climate, overfishing is not depleting the oceans, fossil fuels will never run out, wars that kill masses of civilians are an appropriate way to keep our hands on what's left, we are not desperately overdrawn at the environmental bank and really, the kids are all right.”
Excerpt from Barbara Kingsolver
“The Good Farmer”
http://www.kingsolver.com/
Please also see:
Drowning In An Ocean Of Plastic
http://www.rense.com/general53/plastic.htm