An international conference organised by the University for the Common Good(Universiteit voor het Algemeen Belang - Vlaanderen).

In cooperation with sister organisations and initiatives across the world connected with Water Faculties/Universities/Schools

AIMS
Nowadays two postulates prevail. They are given for granted (which they are not):
• Water is rare and will become even more rare in the future, therefore costly and expensive(hence, the statement that water is the blue gold of the XXI century, as oil has been considered the black gold of past two centuries)
• Water will be one of the major causes of conflicts, even wars, within and across states.

As a matter of fact, water has been made rare by our societies and our modes of life (production, consumption, distribution....). However, what has been made rare is water of good quality for human uses. Water disposal has not diminished. The reduction of availability and access to water of needed quality is at the origin of today’s quantitative crisis of water. There is no natural unavoidability of the ‘water crisis’.

Furthermore, what is more significant than the quantitative crisis of good quality water, is the structural uneveness which still divides the world population, countries, regions and communities regarding access to and power on property, decisions and use of water. Billions of people continue to lack access to drinking water and water for hygiene/health, not because there is lack of water but because they are poor and/or have no power in decision on allocation and use of water resources.

These facts mean that the depletion of water and the lack of water for life can be reversed if our societies want it.
The same applies to the alleged unavoidability of growing conflicts and wars because of water.
These conflicts are destined to become more frequent and severe only if our societies don’t modify the conditions that enable domination and exclusion to dictate competitive, non-cooperative collective behaviors and strategies. Concretely, this means that conflicts will be multiplied and exacerbated if the principles and practices of national souvereignty and security remain unchallenged and if the imperatives of the struggle for its own economic survival and of the competitiveness for winning in a free unregulated world are not abandoned.

The general aim of the conference on Transnational Water is to highlight the evidence, on the basis of empirical studies and analysis from Europe, Africa and Latin America, that water is an emblematic example of the inaccuracy and mystification of the two postulates above mentioned. All the 261 major transnational water bassins of the planet Earth can be governed in an efficient, effective and peaceful manner in the interest of and the right to life for all the communities belonging to the area of the same transnational bassin. Though the target is difficult to achieve, it can (and must) be achieved, provided that involved communities adopt the political, institutional, economic and socio-cultural engineering that will enhance people capabilities to cooperate and live together.

Therefore, the specific aim of the conference is to analyse the different types of ‘societal engineering’ which are implemented and to suggest those instruments that would help to make the increasingly interdependent and globalised world a place (not a market) for ‘a common future’, based on shared responsability of global commons (not of global commodities for sale and profit).
Accordingly, the program of the conference is organised around three problem areas: the issue(s), the case studies, proposals for action.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Location:
University Antwerp
Prinsstraat 13
2000 Antwerp
room C 002

9.30
Opening
Welcome by Noortje Wiesbauer, Director of the UAB

9.45
FIRST PART: THE ISSUE
Transnational water. The great challenge.
Souvereignty, Security, the Common Good, Sustainability, Citizens Participation
by Riccardo Petrella, founder of the UBC, professor of Human Ecology, Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio (CH)
The first ‘global’ transnational bassins: the Mediterranean Sea and the Hansa bassin
by Jean-François Santucci, director of the Environment Department and Jean-Baptiste Calendini, Presidence Office, University of Corsica, Faculté Mondiale de l’Eau (France)

Break

11.00
SECOND PART: THE ANALYSIS. EXAMPLES FROM AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA
The Niger Bassin. An impossible future.
by Alou Hamadoun Cisse, African Water Network, Delta C, Bamako (Mali)
Paranà bassin and the Uruguay river. Lessons for shared water government
By Anibal Faccendini, Director, Catedra Libre del Agua, National Univeristy in Rosario (Argentina)

Debate

 

Lunch

 

14.30
THIRD PART: PROPOSALS FOR ACTION
The role of education
by Jean-Pierre Wauqier, President H20 Association, Clermont Ferrand (France)
The role of regional institutions
by Lionel Roucan, Vicepresident of the Regional Council of Auvergne(France)
by Jacques Perreux, Counsellor, Regional Council Ile de France, Founder of the Université de l’eau du Val de Marne (France)
The role of citizens movements. European and Italian proposals.
by Rosario Lembo, President of the Italian Committee for the World Water Contract and Director of the Università del Bene Comune (Italy) and
Alessandro Mazzerand Paola Libanti, Monastero del Bene Comune e Facoltà dell’Acqua/UBC (Italy)

Debate and Concluding Remarks by Noortje Wiesbauer
A Chart for ‘Water for the World’
by the UBC-Water International Network

 

Reception

 

18.00

End of the conference